The Glade 4.0

The Holiday season that is. In spite of being mistaken for Santa regularly by little children (I play along) and being freshly retired, it is all so much junk right now.

Everywhere all I see is more maneuvers to suck people's money away from them. Commercially thrown together "families" that don't look like they know each other. Crowded malls and canned Carols playing.

Not feeling Scroogish or Grinchish, just not interested.

How about you folks?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Hah, I have felt this way for years. With a wife and children who are into it, though, I've had to mellow. Just finished putting up the lights and tree. But I get where you're coming from, yes.

What's ironic is that I played Scrooge in a 6th-grade play. I didn't even really need to act the Scroogey part.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I'm struggling with Christmas=shopping (as usual) but otherwise I'm into it. I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old. It's fun.

My wife keeps dragging me back down. I'd rather just blow off the whole thing.

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Raell Kromwell

Phe and I have been watching Doctor Who Xmas specials all day. I'm no more in the holiday spirit than I was when I started, but I am a lot happier, because Doctor Who. So...po-tay-to, po-tah-to?

I don't really have any strong feelings about Christmas one way or the other...the biggest issue is that we're on our own this Christmas, and have been too busy to put up decorations and the like. Combine that with not visiting family, and it just doesn't feel "Christmas-y" to me. It blows my mind that it's 10 days away. Feel like...I dunno, early November or something.

Hubby and I are feeling the same Micheal. We have decided to have an Unchristmas this year. No decorations, no fancy dinner...I'm going to put out a nice antipasto tray and just relax.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Taamar loves the hell out of her tree, but that's about as much 'Christmas Spirit' as either of us have.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I'm not into it either. Divorced now, no kids. Needing to move house before the end of the month. Skippin' xmas this year.

I don't care about Christmas. Haven't since I moved out of my parents house. My wife loves, loves, LOVES it. Made me buy a giant tree, the whole nine yards. Now that we have kids, they love it. I pretty much just hang out, and enjoy the old school stop motion and animated christmas specials (as well as "A Christmas Story". (Although I must admit, my 3 yr old singing all the words to Frosty the snowman while we were driving the other day warmed even my frozen heart.)

Not a fan, except for the vacation days from work.

I have 3 small children, and Christmas is one of only 2 times a year our oldest daughter gets home from college, so it always feels Christmas-y around our house. I love the holiday season, although in south Texas, I do miss the snow (visually) and the wintery stuff up north. We used to get out to my mom's house around Christmas; either over the holiday or right after, when we lived in Ohio. One of the few things I like about the east coast is the historical stuff and the holiday stuff and they always combine into a very nice atmosphere - for example, there's a museum at Brandywine, PA that has fantastic holiday displays every year; often including a very nice HO railroad layout!

The older I get though, the more I like the holiday leadup from Thanksgiving to Christmas than I do Christmas itself. I actually have always liked Christmas Eve the best of all days of the year; It was always a nice long day of family time and holiday treats before the intensity of Christmas day (we used to have pretty intense Christmas Days as a kid due to all the cousins). I like the fact that work slows down and fewer people are in, listening to the songs on the way to and from work, things like that.

I don't really care for the fact that you get Christmas stuff in the stores before Halloween, and some times things do get rather over-commercialized (the habit of hyping movies as "ON CHRISTMAS DAY!" is really annoying) but other than that, I love Christmas time.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I've never been a big fan of the Holidays in general.

I usually volunteer to be the one in the office, so others can take time off. It's always quiet, and I can either get more work done, or goof off, as needed...

This.

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Holy shitsnacks!

The only up side to the "holidays" is time off work which allows for time with family and friends. The rest of it can suck it, most especially Christmas music.

Well DE there's no visual snow here either.

I'm looking forward to seeing some folks. I've actually been digging abiding radio Christmas stream. I put my little tree up with my collection of hallmark and hand made keep sakes. I want to get something for the first Christmas in Oregon (Ohio not the state of you haven't been listening) but I'm getting too busy. Usually I'm pretty meh about it, but the new everything has me a little warmed.
After 20 years (has it really been that long) the memory if my cousin's passing (cervical cancer) still creeps in. Moreso in a year like this when I wonder what she'd think if the man I'd become. I think I've passed the older than she was mark by now. That's scary.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

{Rori: Apparently, no, I wasn't paying attention. I think I knew you moved or something, but I had no idea there's an Oregon, OH, until now. For some reason I find that pretty cool. I also really had no idea where Toledo is, and now I do. Thanks!

OK, back to your regularly scheduled Christmas programming.}

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Yeah, I hadn't caught the town you moved to, and thus didn't know an Oregon, Ohio existed (though I knew you stayed in Ohio).

I'll add it to the list of other blatantly stolen place names like Lima, Houston, Versailles, Lebanon, Russia, and so on. Do they at least pronounce Oregon normally, unlike the rest of that list excluding Lebanon?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Final syllable is pronounced with the long O like "on" (pronouncing it like "un" is a sure sign you're an outsider). I have no idea of that's "correct"

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Ah, yeah, that's the pronunciation that people from the state hate.

It's like Green Bay. Now, where'd you put the stress? On the Green, or the Bay? I swear, Mo Udall lost the 1976 primary when he came to the Austin Straubel airport and said, "It's wonderful to be here in Green Bay." It's only a green bay at certain times, usually in August. Otherwise it's Green Bay. Of course, with the popularity of the Packers now, that's much less an issue.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Welcome to Ohio where we steal spellings but make up our own pronunciation

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Ohio is notorious (among transplants, at least) for being preposterously uncultured in pronunciation of all the place names it's lifted for towns.

Russia, OH is pronounced "ROO-see". Lima, OH is pronounced with a long i. Houston, OH is "HOUSE-ten" to locals. Versailles, OH doesn't understand it's a word with a French origin, and thus the "lles" is vocalized.

And all I can do in the face of all this is shake my head.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Well, House-ton makes sense, of course! That's how it's pronounced in New York Houston Street). Could have been NY settlers or something ...

And, all of you speakers of Spanish need to come to LA and embarrass yourselves at least once in your life. Los Feliz, Sepulveda, heck, Los Angeles itself are all pronounced with a certain level of gleeful butchery.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I actually enjoy Christmas, this is the first year in a long time when I do not feel single for Christmas.

I enjoy the gathering with family and friends, seeing the happy look on people's faces as they enjoy a holiday dinner together and make gluttons of themselves. I hate the commercialism of the holidays, but I enjoy the companionship of them.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I didn't used to mind even Christmas shopping (although I never shop on Thanksgiving weekend) but since coming to south Texas it's awful. My wife and I went to Toys R Us last night for the kids. I turned my back on my cart for 2 minutes and our choices were removed from it, placed on a shelf, and the cart made off with while we weren't paying attention. The store was a total zoo.

Actually that's pretty much what shopping on any moderately busy day is like down here. It's just worse at Toys R Us before Christmas.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."