What you didn't know about Father Christmas.

[susie123]

This is an email I have just received from a company I bought some cushion covers from a few months ago

Here at xxxx, we can't wait for Christmas! We're definitely getting into the festive spirit, and we're sure your kids are too!

If you're desperately looking for a truly unique gift or fun stocking fillers for your little ones, check out our range of kids' gifts. From magnificent sawdust dragons to fun purses and pencils, we're sure you'll find something that your children will be thrilled to find on Christmas morning.

As Christmas is the season for giving (who says?), we've decided to give a little something back to our customers. Until the 31st December, every order over £20 will recieve a free packet of incense sticks or cones, as well as a holder in which to burn them. All you have to do is order as normal and your free gift will be automatically added to your order if you've spent over £20.

After all, we know just how stressful Christmas shopping can be (companies like yours only add to it), so whether you give your incense as a gift or use it to chill out after a long day wrapping presents (don't bother), we're sure that our free gift will help put a smile on someone's face! (I can do that in lots of other ways)

This is the sort of thing that really turns me off Christmas, the constant exhortation to buy buy buy and eat and drink our selves silly. I don't need to give a present to show love and why we should give presents just because it's Christmas escapes me. I'm an atheist so perhaps that has something to do with it.

Twenty years ago we stopped giving presents as we were very hard up, and it was a relief. Nobody complained and there still one or two who give us gifts despite our protests. A phrase that really strikes despair into my heart is "Are you ready for/looking forward to Christmas?" Nooooooooooo! Christmas is a day not a season and on the 26th we'll all be at the sales!!

OK so I'm a hardhearted curmudgeonly old bird but that's my inborn cynicism coming to the fore. So be it.

[MargaretR]

I stopped sending christmas cards in 1964.

[susie123]

Originally Posted by MargaretR

I stopped sending christmas cards in 1964.

That's the one thing I still do, not necessarily because it's Christmas, but it's a good way of keeping in touch with friends.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by susie123

This is an email I have just received from a company I bought some cushion covers from a few months ago

Here at xxxx, we can't wait for Christmas! We're definitely getting into the festive spirit, and we're sure your kids are too!

If you're desperately looking for a truly unique gift or fun stocking fillers for your little ones, check out our range of kids' gifts. From magnificent sawdust dragons to fun purses and pencils, we're sure you'll find something that your children will be thrilled to find on Christmas morning.

As Christmas is the season for giving (who says?), we've decided to give a little something back to our customers. Until the 31st December, every order over £20 will recieve a free packet of incense sticks or cones, as well as a holder in which to burn them. All you have to do is order as normal and your free gift will be automatically added to your order if you've spent over £20.

After all, we know just how stressful Christmas shopping can be (companies like yours only add to it), so whether you give your incense as a gift or use it to chill out after a long day wrapping presents (don't bother), we're sure that our free gift will help put a smile on someone's face! (I can do that in lots of other ways)

This is the sort of thing that really turns me off Christmas, the constant exhortation to buy buy buy and eat and drink our selves silly. I don't need to give a present to show love and why we should give presents just because it's Christmas escapes me. I'm an atheist so perhaps that has something to do with it.

Twenty years ago we stopped giving presents as we were very hard up, and it was a relief. Nobody complained and there still one or two who give us gifts despite our protests. A phrase that really strikes despair into my heart is "Are you ready for/looking forward to Christmas?" Nooooooooooo! Christmas is a day not a season and on the 26th we'll all be at the sales!!

OK so I'm a hardhearted curmudgeonly old bird but that's my inborn cynicism coming to the fore. So be it.

No you aren't any of those things...you just are not a fan of the commercialised thing.
I have to admit that I do not like Christmas either. But you don't have to buy into the commercial thing if you don't want to.....and as for being atheist...does that matter much? After all wasn't christmas tacked onto one of the heathen festivals by christians in the hope that they would celebrate it and perhaps convert.

Yes you can give gifts to those you love at any time...but many people don't...but will make an effort at Christmas.

We don't buy in loads of food...we just have a normal Sunday Roast.......sometimes I will do pud as well, but many times in the recent past we haven't bothered.
We don't party or have lots of alcohol........it is just one extra roast dinner in the week.Christmas is for children.
If you haven't any children, or yours are grown up, then much of the magic disappears.

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Christmas is for children.
If you haven't any children, or yours are grown up, then much of the magic disappears.

Amen to that.

[mobertol]

I have always been a fan of Christmas as I have such good childhood memories of it - not so much the presents but us all getting together for family parties and meals.

This year I'll be away from home and having Christmas in the sun for the first time which will be quite novel. I'll be at my parents in Tenerife as their Golden Wedding Anniversary is on Boxing day. My sister and her family are coming from NZ -it will be the first Xmas we've spent together as a family in about 20 years. We've already said that no presents will be exchanged -not practical with travelling and a lot of money has been spent already in air tickets. It will be a special time -Christmas or not, no expectations so nothing can spoil it (Except my other half moaning already about being left on his own for Christmas -but it was his choice not to come!) just being all together will be the best present of all.

[kestrelx]

Originally Posted by susie123

I think the eating of magic mushrooms was around long before anyone postulated the space-time continuum.

Apparently a scientist has worked out that reindeer, just like us, get bored in the long winter nights and eat the fungi for amusement - how he worked that one out I really don't know...


PS Just a little correction, Kes - it's winter solstice, not equinox...

Hi Sue - glad to see you are back! Well it's obvious isn't it really that when we were hunter gatherers we probably worshipped magic mushrooms of all kinds. We probably went round eating things and the question is "How did early humans know things where poisonous?" Surely the answer is that someone had to try them and die from them - or go on a massive hallucinogenic trip (depending on the type taken), in which they probably saw GODS!


PS yeh I noticed I should have said solstice not equinox just after I posted it!

[Sunflower49]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Well, the tat....has been bought with love and thoughts of you(even if it doesn't meet with your taste)......and it beats getting nothing.
You can always donate stuff you consider 'tat' to the charity shops.
I can't say that I give gifts 'just for the sake of it'....I usually shop for people who are important in my life...and I buy what I think they might like and enjoy....I always tell them that if they do not like what I have chosen they are free to give the gift on.....donate it...whatever pleases them.
I have in the past made gifts. Home made fudge, florentines, Christmas cakes, peanut or almond brittle. Peppermint creams and that sort of thing.
It is just to show that they are thought of...with love.

I think I'm pretty much the same. I TRY to put a lot of thought (not necessarily a lot of MONEY!) into gifts. For my family I do really think about what they will like-prompted by their guidance. My family are so weird though. I always call my sister and ask what to get for her, my bro-in-law, and my niece and nephew and she's very good, tends to not tell me exactly what they all want, more so what they all favour at the moment and I usually get it right and they're grateful.
My father HATES!That I do this-he says it's very rude to ask people what they want. However, he quite often buys gifts for me that are totally unsuitable, which I always accept with a lot of grace and 'Thank Yous' because I am grateful for the gesture. E.g he knows I don't eat animal products, he knows that well as he jibes at me for it-yet he buys me food products that I won't eat, and cut flowers (which I see as a waste of money and resources) and other items I have no use for (e.g an earring case, a beautiful one I must add, but I do not have my ears pierced and never have had!).
However when I have got it wrong and bought a gift he does not appreciate, he makes a show of me for it !
I bought a bonsai tree a few years ago for him , and he put his sarcastic head on 'Oh I'm RIGHT into that!!' in front of everybody I thought it was cute.
I also made gifts one year-I'm no craftsman, but I took care and made home-made chocolates in little boxes that I'd decorated, along with some candle-holders and some other things. Everybody found this hilarious and asked if I was particularly broke this year. Then the chocolates were polished off WAY before dinner.

If I receive 'Tat' I reuse it, make use of it some other way, or pass it along to those who will want to use it. One man's junk is another's treasure.
I think we're in an era where, if people want something-they generally go and get it. Gifts are harder to find because of this. Unless you spend a lot of money or go out of your way bigtime, it's difficult. I start shopping for gifts early and try to find unusual things. USUALLY I manage to.

[kestrelx]

The Roman Catholic Church destroyed a lot of ancient knowledge so we will never fully know a lot of ancient practices. One book that contained information then once burned was completely lost. They have brainwashed people to believe in their in doctrination.

[Less]

Originally Posted by susie123

I'd rather that than lots of tat just for the sake of it. I'd prefer folks to save their money and spend it on something they want for themselves.

Yippee, if I followed that idea, no xmas cards going out, no gifts for the kids or grandkids, I could afford a £2 hooker.

[Margaret Pilkington]

You would be able to keep the £2 Less...today, there are a lot of enthusiastic amateurs about

[Less]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

You would be able to keep the £2 Less...today, there are a lot of enthusiastic amateurs about

That sounds like an offer I can't refuse, when can we meet?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Less...I'm not one of those enthusiastic amateurs.......and you can't afford me.
I wouldn't take off my gloves for £2

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Less...I'm not one of those enthusiastic amateurs.......and you can't afford me.
I wouldn't take off my gloves for £2

Gloves eh? How refined - just shows the standard!

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes Sue...they are elbow length, kid leather, with real pearl buttons at the wrist.

So he definitely can't afford me!