First it was Mum and Dad here for thanksgiving, then Irv and Sharon for a few days this week - we've had a full house recently! It has really lended to the seasonal cheer to have family and friends around, and it's been great having the company. Now we've got to race arond getting Christmas presents sorted out, this time of year seems so busy! I'm starting to 'get' Thanksgiving, although I haven't shook the feeling yet that it's a piece of Christmas come early.
Marketeers are incredibly PC about Christmas, in fact you will rarely see an advert that mentions Christmas specifically because they don't want to offend the people for whom it's not the Christmas season but actually Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or something else. We've recently done Christmas-time ads at work with the customary non-offensive 'Happy Holidays' and 'Holiday Season' type messages, and I find them very unsatisfying. For me, growing up in Britain, Christmas is:
Christmas Trees
Santa
Mistletoe and holly
Gifts
Family
Friends
Parties
Tasty food
Advent calendars
Panettone
Liebkuchen
Pretty lights
If you're not talking about Christmas, none of the symbols of it can appear in your ad either. It gets a little tricky...
So what's the big deal? My best guess is that American Christians tend to be more outspoken than most about the True Meaning of Christmas, thereby forcing others to deny it. For the rest of the world I rather like how the religious meaning is forgotten and people just enjoy it as an extension of New Year festivities and a great time to celebrate with family and friends. Tons of countries around the world celebrate Christmas but don't get hung up on the religious part, it's a shame it can't happen here. Hmm.. next step.. put this question to a couple of colleagues who have declared that they 'don't celebrate Christmas'. They didn't say 'bah humbug' so I'm assuming they have a religious belief behind this...
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2 comments:
... of course the religious part was bolted on anyhow, as the christians appropriated a pagan festival and called it Xmas.
It's so low key here it's easy to forget Xmas is coming up. Which i like, but then it does mean you can get to less than 2 weeks to go and not have bought ANY presents. it is a bit bizarre when you do see Xmas trees and snow scenes etc, and its 25-30 degrees outside..
Of course the birth of Christ which the Christians, in about three hundred AD allocated to 25 December, took place in a middle eastern country with no snow or Xmas trees.
Apparently the Victorians were the ones who seriously began the festivities that we recognise today. Before them it had become a low key religious day only, largely because of the earlier associations with pagan activities.....carousing, mistletoe etc
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