Christmas - Unhijacked! - Page 2 - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**mermaidnz** · 11-20-2007, 07:25 AM

omg. so no one else here is an absolute grinch at christmas? hell, id work christmas day if the club was open, i hate it so much!! lol

the music, the commercialism... gah.makes me cringe. i hate christmas food, roast dinner-yuck. presents- cant *STAND* recieving them,it makes me feel akward... love buying shit for other people, but again, hate phsyicaly giving them...ill make someone else give it, or ill post it.lol. ew. the whole day makes me cringe!!

musta had a shitty christmas as a kid with repressed memories or something haha

**pinknic38** · 11-20-2007, 10:10 AM

lol way to be scrooge, mermaidnz! haha! I've been scrooge a few times, just because some years arebetter than others. my family began to evolve into scrooges after my grandma and aunt died in the same year... holidays have never really been the same since. plus my mom, since I have been alive, has had to work every other holiday (it rotates each year so if she's off christmas this year, she works thanksgiving and vice versa the next... but including all the other holidays) cos she's a nurse and sick people don't stop because of the holidays LOL. so it's hard when she works Christmas and me and my sister wake up at like noon on christmas morning and are just sitting lthere like... "what's up?" LOL.

but we badger my mother, as we've gotten older, into letting us open presents early. usually no later than December 20th, we're begging like homeless people... "come on mom, just one!" and then if you open up something that's part of a set, you gotta open the other part... by Christmas we've got like 1 thing to open.

then the wrench in the whole holiday thing was when my mom married my stepdad, who is Jewish (but not practicing... sort of like the rest of my family...) so we gotta factor in Hanukkah.

complicated or not, I love the holidays! :D I'm not a cheery person, I'm sort of "glass half empty and sarcastic/cynical" but come Christmas time I am chock full of holday cheer.

what's everyone's fave holday movie???

I have a few...
1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (CLASSIC!!)
2. Home Alone
3. It's A Wonderful Life

**LiveFreeorDie** · 11-20-2007, 03:18 PM

Quote:

this year it was "little drummer boy" by jessica & ashlee simpson

First Celine...now the Simpson sisters???? Talk about a 'throw up in your mouth' comment......

Harry Connick Jr...good
Frank.....good

The Simpson sisters? Unless they are in a new porn title...I just don't need them to be in, well, anything quite frankly.

I really only want to hear Christmas music maybe 2 weeks leading up to the holiday. Anything more than that is way overkill.

**aliz** · 11-20-2007, 04:00 PM

yeah christmases working in retail ruin christmas music. Although I just downloaded Christina Aguilera's old Christmas CD and so I'm happy

**jengt** · 11-20-2007, 04:19 PM

I don't think I have a favorite Christmas movie. White Christmas is a classic.

I like the old classics for Christmas music though. Bing, Frank, Harry Connick Jr. I especially love to hear Christmas music done by a bell choir. A church where I grew up would have a Christmas concert every year. I miss that!

I can't wait to get my tree up. I refuse to turn the lights on until December 1st - but I'll go ahead & get everything ready before then. I even take a smallish (4 1/2 foot) tree to work & decorate everything around me! And no, there is no such thing as a tree with too many lights!!!!

**TheJake** · 11-20-2007, 04:29 PM

does anyone remember the movie Holiday Inn?

It isn't really produced anymore cause it has a blackface number in it and White Christmas kind of overshadowed it. But Holiday Inn is yes, where the hotel franchise got its name and the first time that the song White Christmas. Anyway it's my favorite christmas movie, well second of course to A Muppet Family Christmas with John Denver!

**jengt** · 11-20-2007, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheJake

does anyone remember the movie Holiday Inn?

I do!!! It's another of my favorites. I've actually seen it on TV recently (within the past couple years) - they've cut that scene out of course. I could watch old Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire & all of the old 1940's & '50's musicals from sun up to sun down.

**BigE** · 11-20-2007, 04:36 PM

Ths is my first year I will be working all day on Christmas. I have to work from 7 to 3 at the hospital and be on emergency call. On top of that I had one of the strangest years of my life. I will be a scrooge this year.

Bah Humbug!

**afterlife3** · 11-20-2007, 05:13 PM

Obviously those that loooove Christmas music so much, have not been stuck working in the retail sector too much during this joyous time of year. Where I used to work, a week after halloween they would start playing Christmas music on the local radio, 24hrs a day. They would put the songs in a loop, so if you were to work a 6hr shift, there was a good chance to here the same song, and different variations of the same song, about 3 or 4 times. Add that to working about 5 or 6 shifts and you begin to hate Christmas music with a passion.

**expatben** · 11-20-2007, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mermaidnz

omg. so no one else here is an absolute grinch at christmas?

Actually, I posted earlier-may still be in the job threads that I do not like Christmas. I guess its because when I was a kid we would have Christmas in Elora with my family which my Mom did not really like and then when we moved to England we had these Christmases with my step family. I remember thinking it was weird there were people who we ordinarly did not see and who frankly I did not like but because it was Xmas and because my Grandpa re-married we all just kinda...pretended. And even now, my Sis who I do not like is coming up for Xmas-why? Because its Xmas. I guess after those Christmases in Elora I began seeing Xmas as a burden. Oh yeah and being in the ICU visiting your cancer ridden Grandma will kill your spirit-although God bless her my Aunt hung out stalkings for us and tried her best to make it a good one.

**jengt** · 11-20-2007, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterlife3

Obviously those that loooove Christmas music so much, have not been stuck working in the retail sector too much during this joyous time of year.

I've worked in retail for nearly 20 Christmas seasons. Yes, the muzak gets annoying, but I still love Christmas music - in moderation.

**Joker** · 11-20-2007, 09:41 PM

Grinch checking in...

I can't stand the holidays, to be quite honest. I can tell you that a life spent in the restaurant business, with a stint in retail thrown in for good measure does not make one love the holidays (with the exception of the increased income- always love that).

For that matter, the past few years have been rough. We buried my dad's parents almost a year apart (grandpa last year, grandma the year prior), said goodbye to a lot of relatives that were dying over the holidays, etc etc.

For that matter, I hate the over-commercialization of the whole thing. I just heard a "Happy Holidays" commercial on the TV, and for the past week Black Friday commercials have been everywhere. People act like real assholes this time of year, but think that a generic "Happy Holidays" can erase that. It's not my fault you waited until 6pm on Christmas Eve to buy the thing you could have gotten 5 weeks ago, I don't have it in stock, and you're pissed because your wife/husband/kid/mistress/whatever is going to be disappointed. Not my fucking fault.

Bah Humbug.

The one thing that puts me in the mood, however: Three Christmas Specials, ones that haven't been neutered to the "Happy Holidays" PC bull.

Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, The Grinch (animated), and Charlie Brown Christmas. I see them and it wipes away the humbug just a little. In fact, for the past few years, I've sipped a good Scotch and listened to the Charlie Brown Christmas album by Vince Guaraldi and slipped into bliss. But thats about it.

**expatben** · 11-21-2007, 04:06 AM

I totally agree Steve, Christmas comes way too early. I remember at work this guy once told a story about his wife who works at a supermarket. Well, around this time of year they do Christmas special meals-like sprouts ect. OK so this jerk like 2 days before Christmas asks whether they are still in stock and when she said no he said that its ruined his holidays. What?? Surely a happy Christmas should not rely on material goods and if it was so important why not buy them before??

**Sijuki** · 11-21-2007, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterlife3

Obviously those that loooove Christmas music so much, have not been stuck working in the retail sector too much during this joyous time of year. Where I used to work, a week after halloween they would start playing Christmas music on the local radio, 24hrs a day. They would put the songs in a loop, so if you were to work a 6hr shift, there was a good chance to here the same song, and different variations of the same song, about 3 or 4 times. Add that to working about 5 or 6 shifts and you begin to hate Christmas music with a passion.

Why wait for halloween, they start filtering it in during October... although luckily this year Home Depot hasn't kicked it in full swing... that will start on Black Friday. I was in best buy like 3 weeks ago and they had christmas music full-on. The thing I hate is they play all these new versions of classic songs and frankly most of them suck. If I was listening to classics by good ol singers, I could probably withstand it.

**pinknic38** · 11-21-2007, 11:51 AM

ahhhhhh I love Charlie Brown Christmas and the animated Grinch!!!

I've always been a fan of the rotten-hearted animated characters... always loved the Grinch and was a huge fan of Cruella de Ville when I was a kid... and I got to play the Wicked Witch of the West when my third grade class put on the Wizard of Oz. I was the only one who wanted the part. Everyone wanted to be the Good Witch. bahhh.

My commander just ordered like every Christmas movie ever made so we can have movie nights in our conference room on the projector. I'm kind of excited. :D

**expatben** · 11-22-2007, 02:21 AM

Yeah I love the animated Grinch movie-never seen the live action and I don't intend to either.

**benna2** · 11-22-2007, 06:20 AM

I woke up this morning and saw snow on the ground...for the first time in over two years!!! I was a little taken aback at first but then I realized that a white Christmas will be kinda nice. I just hate the bad driving, cold and stormy weather that comes along with it. In fact, if we could have snow on just Christmas day I would be happy!

**pinknic38** · 11-22-2007, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by expatben

Yeah I love the animated Grinch movie-never seen the live action and I don't intend to either.

yeah it's not very good. the costumes and set are crazy amazing I think, but the cartoon version... come on.

**lauren313** · 11-22-2007, 10:44 AM

What is Black Friday?!

**LiveFreeorDie** · 11-22-2007, 11:17 AM

^The day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. (tomorrow). Its the biggest shopping day of the year in the states. All the stores have crazy sales and hard core shoppers begin lining up to get in stores at like 2am. Many stores open as early as 5am. I stay as far away from the malls as I can. People either love it or hate it. It is the official beginning to the Christmas shopping period.