They’re playing CHRISTMAS MUSIC already on two of my favorite stations!
We have seven weeks until Christmas! What are they thinking?
I want my Advent back!
{… commence long tantrum, ending with me reprogramming my car stereo’s preset stations and loading up my iPod with generic non-Christmas music. …}
Grr. I like Christmas music *at Christmas time.* This? Isn’t Christmas. There are still leaves on the trees and it’s supposed to hit 60 degrees today. Dear American corporations: please look up the word ‘overkill’ and get back to me in four more weeks.
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I just went and looked at last year’s ranting, and sure enough, I said the same thing only more intelligently. Clearly I need a solution to this problem, and I haven’t found it yet. But I can tell you two radio stations I’ll be writing a strongly-worded letter.
Can we maybe have Thanksgiving first?
Apparently no.
I was rejoicing because we just got out of the political ads. Will it never stop???
But… but… but… The Economy!!!
We have to be good little consumers and buy, buy, buy to get us out of our terrible recession. The music is only a public service to remind us that tis the season to reach the limits on our credit cards.
It’s our duty.
Oops. My SARCASM tags didn’t show up on that last post.
This Christmas, gifts will have to be of the handmade and baked goods variety.
Actually, I need to post about that: this Christmas, I’m getting all my gifts from Etsy and everyone else gets a batch of cookies. Gah. (Actually, dear brother, if you’re reading this, you get a GC to a nice restaurant because I suspect you’ll actually like my gift for once if I do that!)
Amy, you’re right. It started the day after the elections and I just want to curl into a little ball and whimper. Instead I may finally listen to my “Book of Genesis” lectures and “Early Christianity” course. :-b
Odd thing is, this year is the first time in a long time I’m not doing handmade gifts. It just worked out that way.
We usually drop the kids at MIL’s and do an afternoon at Toys’R’Us, then another afternoon where we each take one kid to the same store, and a third where we go to the mall and trade kids half-way through, although sometimes the last one is done by each person taking both kids. What I dread is the grandparents saying, “Here’s money. You know what the kid wants, just stick our name on the tag.”
Our goal is to get the shopping and wrapping done by Dec. 1, and then concentrate on the decorations.
It’s really sad that the holiday season has become something to “get over with” rather than filled with anticipation and rejoicing.
Hence the November shopping. Much less crowded. We remember the kids rather than feel the pressure, and less frustrating if we can’t find the perfect gift. (Although we try to get something — otherwise it drags out.) Fewer Christmas songs in the stores, and we’re not sick of them yet. I find getting the “duty” gifts out of the way leaves me free to see the “joy” gifts, which might otherwise not get noticed.
It’s an interesting parallel. Passover is much like Christmas in its meaning. Here we have the birth of a nation on one hand, the birth of a savior on the other. Both holidays should be intense with anticipation and celebration.
More and more, however, you hear Jews saying, “I just can’t wait to have a bagel and cream cheese” instead of, “Thank G-d we were redeemed from slavery, given G-d’s word at Sinai, and made into a nation. Thank G-d for all the miracles He performed for us.”
More and more you hear Christians saying, “We have to shop for the kids, decorate the house, decide which relative to visit when, will it ever stop?” instead of stopping and being grateful for all the holiday means.
In both, it feels like we’re leaving G-d out, and without Him our souls sense that the whole exercise is pointless, thus “something to get over with.”
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