MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Me and Mrs mon have been lucky enough to to spend the last......... Long as I can remember....... Christmases abroad,
Goa
Dublin
Andalusia Alhambra
Reykjavik
Puerto Rico
Etc
Main reason we went abroad was to get away from the BS attached to Christmas in the uk and thankfully the places we visited had a totally different attitude to celebrating this Festive time of year.
Got a 14mnth old mini mon to look after now so things have changed, this is my first uk Christmas in over ten years and I'm sat on the couch, watching shite on tv nursing a whisky, worrying about being seen to be jolly? (Which I am not)
How do you cope
By remembering it's a festival older than the major religions that have since claimed it.
Eat, drink, look forward to the days getting longer again and generally be nice to your kin.
Not much family left, have arranged to meet up with friends but they're all party animals ( don't ride)
don't feel like I can fit in but don't want to be seen as bah humbug.
Not a heavy drinker really so don't really know how to join in.
Might try that church malarkey 🙂
Why don't you go to somewhere that doesn't even acknowledge Xmas OP?
it means whatever you want it too ..do whatever you want, don't get bogged down in tradition stand back and revel in its absurd excess or jump right in choice is yours ...but most of all enjoy ..Happy Christmas x
To me now, nothing really, it's all a big show for the kids and they seem to enjoy it. Well I suppose anyone would enjoy getting stuff they didn't really deserve from a magical man who wants nothing in return apart from you being "good" or your parents being soft....
I've had a few Christmas away with work and while I miss my family we all seem to have a good time, the amount of booze consumed normally helps.... we drank a bar out of gin one year....
Cheers, Steve
By remembering it's a festival older than the major religions that have since claimed it.
In fairness as far as I know only 1 major religion has claimed Christmas and that's Christianity. Christmas isn't big with Jews, Muslims or Hindu's from a religious persoective but everyone loves a party
OP family get together, time for reflection, Christmas decorations, festive fun.
Candles burning low
Lots of mistletoe
Credit card catastrophe
Fighting over Monopoly
Means sod-all to me and I used to be a churchgoer! Would do the abroad thing if I could but work has a holiday ban for all of December and the first week of January so that's out 🙁
All the pre-xmas crap is wearisome and pointless. Was hoping to get to do my own thing this year as the family get-together is on Boxing Day but my parents are insisting on me turning up in the evening. Was hoping to spend all day on the bike but a morning ride will have to do.
I struggle with Christmas, fortunately my kids are now grown up and feels easier to break from the some of the tedious "traditions".
It's a time to get together, even my dad would have an easy day just a quick look around the farm and that is it. However I'm now on the other side of the world in shorts.
In some ways it's a nice way to move from year to the next and take a bit of time to reflect on what has happened and whats next.
it is the time of birth of the lord god jesus, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name. Hallejauhahhahah
It means running your legs up your back to keep other people happy while having to be in a festive mood. I do like the actual day, but I can't understand why Has to be so much harder than preparing the usual Sunday dinner.
jambalaya - Member
By remembering it's a festival older than the major religions that have since claimed it.In fairness as far as I know only 1 major religion has claimed Christmas and that's Christianity. Christmas isn't big with Jews, Muslims or Hindu's from a religious persoective but everyone loves a party
Yeah, realised how that read once it was too late.
I thinking about the social and commercial aspect of the thing rather than the religious. I teach a high proportion of Muslim kids, and an awful lot of them are as excited about Christmas as the 'Christians'.
It means I feel less guilty about my general level of wine consumption 😆
A PITA - nothing more and I'd happily walk away from it and everyone who drops in with all the bollocks and BS that follows it.
Not interested in having things bought for me.
Not interested in being forced to go out and buy things for others "because it's..::"
I couldn't give a flying f*ck - if I want something I'll buy it.
Same goes for if I want to buy someone something.
Loads of commercial, religious, hand wringing, keeping up with the Jone's bollocks and I can't wait till it's done.
New Year can do the same too
Main reason we went abroad was to get away from the BS attached to Christmas in the uk
About to do the same for the first time...
CANNOT WAIT!!!
Christmas is a bundle of joyless consumerism and everybody making a massive scene out of nothing to me. I enjoy the food. I hate everything else about it, including the expectation you'll spend the day with people you can't normally spend more than 10 minutes around without killing each other. I especially hate the expectation to buy each other gifts, as for the first 30yrs of my life, I always used to put a huge amount of effort into this aspect of it all, when everybody else grabbed the most inane and random thing they could that wouldn't even warrant 2 minutes of my attention at best (my Dad got me a selection of condiments and my GF a jam selection last year, he gave rise to my very being and he got me a ****ing box of condiments! I would very much rather have had nothing, which is what I hope I get this year, as nothing is far less insulting than saying "you're my son, but I really don't know you and have no interest in finding out what interests you either").
Argh!!!! Thinking about Christmas here is boiling my blood again!!! Thank god I'll be on a plane out of here soon enough...
Well , I hink most on here will have read the post re My Nephews, The power kites and lack of gift acknowlegement.
I dont get it. Its so stressfull and everyone gets worked on trying to provide the perfect gift , perfect dinner, perfect tree . Its now become so commercialised that everyone gets wrapped up in spending hours and hours ond hundreds of pounds making xmas happen.
This year I have pretty much disengaged from xmas . Took a step back and thought about buying more landfill. Junk no-one really needs just to carry on a tradition from when we were kids.
At 47 with no kids the things I want I wouldnt be comfortable asking for ( Gabba / Strada / Reverb ) as they cost too much
Plus I work in a brewery and its always manic just before xmas , and I normaly have to be around to check on things anyway , which I have done for the last 30 years , and every year my familly do the usual "But its Christmas , do you have to work?" Yes, Yeast doesnt do Christmas. Every year.
Not to really it's all just made up bs. To us it's see family and the fact that the solstice has passed.
I'm %100 with Mboy it's a horrid time of year,the world goes crazy rush rush stress stress.. It's not a relaxing time at all to much hinges on the day to make it a happy affair sooner it's done the better
It means listening to people who don't do Christmas.
I like the idea of it, but it's always a compromise, feeling obliged to go with what everyone else tells you to do and where to spend it. Anyway, this year for once we're having a very quiet one at home.
Having a full time job and kids means it's difficult to find time to buy nice thoughtful presents.... and presumably that was the excuse of the folks who bought me a green plastic handbag and an air hostess style scarf last year!
Actually happy to be off work with my very special 3 people, watching them enjoy time together and buying them stuff that they truly want.
Plus drinking as much as I want and not worrying about driving as I just park them all up. Riding mid week with my boy etc etc etc
Absolutely chuff all . A completely false and shallow greed riddled shitfest .
Thanks for asking .
I think I may have mentioned [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/omg-santas-coming ]I enjoy it[/url]. But I'm lucky to be a mid thirties very content singleton, with no money worries and can effectively give myself most of Dec/ Jan off. I've spent most of Dec to spending time with family, here and in Norway. Had real fun taking niece's and nephew's out and away, which in turn gives my kin a bit of breathing space to get sorted. I'm currently in London where I'll be doing a week of shifts volunteering with the homeless. But before anyone thinks I'm getting all pious, I've turned down the hostel accommodation that came with the package, and will be staying in a rather nice hotel, as I spend the rest of the time seeking casual sex through the usual dating apps, enjoying the nightlife and entertaining that comes with. So really Christmas means family, giving, having a break, lot's of booze and trying to get my end away. In fairness, the only difference to the rest of the year is I do less work and biking.
FA...so I don't christmas.
It means listening to people who don't do Christmas.
it means listening to people who don't agree with your 'version' of Christmas?
I don't 'do' Xmas, because of the absolute state it's become, and the pig headed resistance by many to tolerate anything other than 'tradition'.
Think most need to take a step back and objectively look at themselves, I don't see much joy around in the shops, just wide eyed panic. It's conformity, all or nothing distorted thinking.
Tradition is the enemy of progress, do something different for Xmas this year that makes you and your friends and family happy, and have the courage to challenge those with closed minds 🙂
Merry Xmas
What does Christmas mean to you?
A time to decompress.
Crassmass is a time to enjoy the hypocrisy of humans in full swing.
Doing: R'n'R. Cooking something relatively complicated (Lancashire hotpot with dumplings this year). Drinking some delicious alcoholic liquids. Cycling or hill-walking the after-effects off on Boxing Day.
Happy Days.
"Meaning"? Not much. Marking the solstice, maybe....
What does Christmas mean to you?
1. Buy stuff.
2. Sales.
3. Plenty of people I have never seen before coming out from the woodwork.
4. Eat, watch telly, more telly, argue on interweb and sleep.
5. Kind of holiday.
p/s: The better show 3rd episode of the Hobbit ... they better ... coz I have not seen that yet.
A time to decompress.
Its time off when pretty much everyone else is taking time off. You can take a break from work at any other time of year and when you do there rest of the world is carrying on without you. It means you have to try and get ahead of the game before you stop - hand over work to colleagues etc and have catching up to do when you get back. And in the mean time you can have nagging worry creep in that plates are dropping somewhere.
(it all depends in your line of work and your employer of course - my GF's old boss used to called her about work every day of a 2 week holiday.)
The good thing about Christmas is in a lot of sectors pretty much the whole world stops - you stop work a day or two before Christmas and start again a day or two after New Year and everything is pretty much as you left it.
For me being self employed and with work generally being very short notice its a very welcome week in the doldrums.
xmas is the commercialisation of a christian religious festival that they stole from pagens.
Nailed it 😆
😆 @ martinhutch
A couple of days off.
Even more food and drink than normal.
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Me and my boy sharing beer and peanuts with Xmas songs on in background in a small pub in wales.
I'm sure the small minded sheep will love that dailymash piece 😀
DO NOT QUESTION CRASSMASS, GOD DAMN YOU.
Sharing food with people I love. I don't do guilt trip Christmas with people I don't like I chose a select few I want to be with or I go abroad sometimes. No pressure no stress.
See the family, tell crap dad jokes and have a good meal. The commercial stuff can be ignored in the main, I have one person to get a present for.
It's only crass if you buy into the hullabaloo.
Christmas to me means getting woken up at 10am to hit the whisky with the old man, then eating too much and falling asleep whilst the dog licks my Twiglet stained fingers. 😀
This year being different it meant a lot of long road ride solo in the heat, chucking some lamb in the oven now
then eating too much and falling asleep whilst the dog licks my Twiglet
😯
Xmas to me is family :
21 of us for xmas lunch and a 3 day stay at my sisters , utter chaos, it was excellent, really look forward to it every year
Christmas as a concept* means bugger-all to me, but I at least got six days of not working, only having had a week off in the last six months, so perfectly happy with that.
*No religious inclinations whatsoever, never have had. No problem with exchanging gifts with a small number of people though.
Christmas is my wider family round a table with good food and booze having fun with each other , and now my enjoying my son's reaction to presents that make his world better and new experiences.
We all know it's a pagan festival at heart but when times are tough and nights dark it is good to celebrate the renewal of the sun and the coming of the light . The promise of future hope the company and pleasure of those who mean most to you...
A Carol Service where I can say I can I can't believe it's not Rutter.
Applauds mefty. Can't believe ive never heard that before
We've got two daughters (aged 6 and 9) who start getting excited in October (as soon as the shops start filling up with Christmas crap)
We try not to get dragged into the commercialism of it all, my kids are lucky and lead very privileged lives, so we try to play down Christmas and not go crazy with the presents.
Christmas for my wider family is a difficult time as my younger brother (who loved Christmas) died 3 years ago aged 36.
So most of my time is spent making the best Christmas possible for my kids, and my Mum and Dad.
I can't bear all the craziness in the weeks running up to Christmas - people behaving appallingly in supermarkets, crazy driving, etc.
As I get older I'm becoming more aware that Christmas is a tough time for so many reasons for so many people.