Has Christmas Lost Its Spirit or Just Its Meaning?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Schrodinger's Dog
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Christmas
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the varying perceptions and experiences of Christmas, touching on themes of celebration, commercialization, and personal significance. Participants share their feelings about the holiday's spirit, the pressures of gift-giving, and the cultural aspects surrounding Christmas, including secular and religious interpretations.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express a sense of detachment or "blahness" regarding Christmas, questioning its significance and their ability to engage with the holiday.
  • Others argue that the commercialization of Christmas leads to financial strain and a lack of creativity in gift-giving.
  • Some participants embrace the holiday spirit, celebrating it as a secular occasion filled with decorations, food, and joy, while others reflect on the absence of traditional celebrations in their lives.
  • There are mixed feelings about Christmas music, with some participants finding it irritating and others enjoying it, depending on their exposure to it.
  • A participant mentions that Christmas provides an opportunity for focused work due to a quieter environment in their department.
  • Some express a desire to celebrate other traditions, such as the Solstice, in lieu of Christmas.
  • There are humorous exchanges regarding the lyrics of popular Christmas songs and the general sentiment towards them.
  • One participant expresses frustration with their recent academic experiences, suggesting a connection between stress and the holiday season.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

The discussion reflects a lack of consensus, with participants expressing a wide range of feelings about Christmas, from enthusiasm to indifference or even hostility. Multiple competing views on the holiday's meaning and significance remain evident.

Contextual Notes

Participants' experiences and feelings about Christmas are influenced by personal circumstances, cultural backgrounds, and individual beliefs, leading to diverse interpretations of the holiday.

Schrodinger's Dog
Messages
840
Reaction score
7
:smile: It's just dawned on me last night that it is in fact Christmas, so that's why all those decorations are all over the place. And the TV adverts for crappy perfumes and toys that'll break in five minutes. The endless songs about Christmas on the radio, oh and the weathers cold and foggy or cloudy. Got it?:smile:

Anyone else having trouble getting into the spirit of Christmas, Athesists, agnostics, theists,Budhists whatever your reason to celebrate or not, are you having trouble noticing that it's Christmas this year? Have you been burgled,or had your Christmass bonus canceled or like me have you just been too busy to take stock and accept that someone was in fact born at some point in time some two thousand or so years ago, and so we are obliged to celebrate, whether we find significance or not. Or are you one of those annoying people who just gets carried away and inflicts Christmas cheer on even the most down hearted people, despite it not always being welcome.:smile:

So what's the deal with you? Anything like me and my blahness about the whole deal? Could you care less, or is it a magical time for giving and sharing for you, someone must apreciate the deal, where I come from the UK, it's a much more secular afair.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
'Jesus was born, and so I get presents.
Thank you, Jesus, for being born.'
--Eric Cartman :biggrin:

Joke aside, the thing that irritates me is people getting their bank accounts into minuses to make a great and expensive Christmas shopping without actually any imagination or the component of surprise. If they were a bit smarter (damn, not just a bit), they'd spend less money and make their families even happier.
 
I'm one of those who inflicts Christmas cheers on everyone I meet! :biggrin: It's entirely a secular holiday for me, and is to be celebrated with lots of brightly lit trees and decorations (I even got a cheap, light-up necklace this year that looks like a string of Christmas lights to wear to the party at the house of the person who didn't decorate this year), tons of food, especially cookies and chocolate (if I didn't gain some weight for Christmas, I wouldn't be able to make the traditional New Year's resolution to lose 10 lbs :biggrin:), loud, silly songs everyone knows the words to, and presents. The only part I don't get this year is watching little kids in their jammies shredding giftwrap on Christmas morning.
 
My mother's like that, she goes christmas mental every year, she has a bout a dozen Christmas CD's with music from: The Pogues Fairy Tale of New York to Silent Night, she's an unconventional Christian, very very liberal and any old tat that reminds her of Christmas is worth a shot. I think I actually kind of miss that, at least I had someone to remind me :smile: I mean even if your not Christian there's still Io Saturnalia or New years, so I guess I should make more of an effort. Maybe I should become a new age celt.

Cartman is right and that's how all kids think, unless they're Kenny or Kail :smile:

I did my Christmas shopping on Teusday it cost £120 pounds took five minutes and I didn't even leave my pc.
 
Last edited:
Moonbear said:
loud, silly songs everyone knows the words to
I know someone who didn't believe the chimney song even existed. :cry:
 
I've just been busy, but no matter.

I'll get a tree tomorrow.
Sunday and Monday I'll do my Christmas shopping.
Tuesday I'll bake some cookies and stuff.
Wednesday I'll buy some things for the Christmas dinner.
Thursday I'll buy a calendar.
 
Hurkyl said:
I know someone who didn't believe the chimney song even existed. :cry:

What's the chimney song?
 
BobG said:
I've just been busy, but no matter.

I'll get a tree tomorrow.
Sunday and Monday I'll do my Christmas shopping.
Tuesday I'll bake some cookies and stuff.
Wednesday I'll buy some things for the Christmas dinner.
Thursday I'll buy a calendar.

:smile: At least you'll be well-stocked for the New Year's Eve celebration! :biggrin:
 
I am excited, really excited to know that in a few days I won't hear anymore of those idiotic lyrics around the clock:

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la"

"Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
and two eyes made out of coal."

"Thumpetty thump thump,
thumpety thump thump,
Look at Frosty go."

"Here comes Santa Claus!
Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!"

"O Christmas Tree,
O Christmas Tree,
Your boughs can
teach a lesson
That constant faith
and hope sublime
Lend strength and
comfort through all time."

"Then all the reindeer loved him"

"On the eighth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Eight maids a milking,
Seven swans a swimming,
Six geese a laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French Hens,
Two turtle doves
And a Partridge in a pear tree."

How anyone can stand this idiocy for more than a month everyday in every place they go is beyond me.
 
  • #10
Christmas is the time I get the best data from my experiments. The department is mostly deserted - no vibrations, electrical noise, etc. I hope to put in some solid 15-hour-days over this week.
 
  • #11
MeJennifer said:
How anyone can stand this idiocy for more than a month everyday in every place they go is beyond me.

I love those songs! But, then again, I have barely gotten out to any malls, so only hear them when I play them at home. I got my shopping done early this year (yet, am still going to have to battle the last minute crowds at the mall because a post-doc just got a new job and is leaving next week! She should have the decency to stay until after the new year so I can delay buying her going away present until after Christmas when the only lines are at the returns counters!)
 
  • #12
MeJennifer said:
I am excited, really excited to know that in a few days I won't hear anymore of those idiotic lyrics around the clock:

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la"

"Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
and two eyes made out of coal."

"Thumpetty thump thump,
thumpety thump thump,
Look at Frosty go."

"Here comes Santa Claus!
Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!"

"O Christmas Tree,
O Christmas Tree,
Your boughs can
teach a lesson
That constant faith
and hope sublime
Lend strength and
comfort through all time."

"Then all the reindeer loved him"

"On the eighth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Eight maids a milking,
Seven swans a swimming,
Six geese a laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French Hens,
Two turtle doves
And a Partridge in a pear tree."

How anyone can stand this idiocy for more than a month everyday in every place they go is beyond me.

Good thing you didn't mention:

"Jack Frost roasting o'er an open fire
Chestnuts nipping at your toes"

That's my favorite Christmas song.

My kids seldom dreamed of candy canes and sugar plums around Christmas time.
 
  • #13
BobG said:
Good thing you didn't mention:

"Jack Frost roasting o'er an open fire
Chestnuts nipping at your toes"

That's my favorite Christmas song.

My kids seldom dreamed of candy canes and sugar plums around Christmas time.

It's hardly surprising when you have machinations to kill seasonal figures over an open fire!:eek:
 
  • #14
Schrödinger's Dog said:
What's the chimney song?

http://www.superlaugh.com/cmas/chimney.htm

Augmented with cutsey animation.
 
  • #15
Bah, Humbug!

We are still discussing the possibility of getting a tree. If I can keep it in discussion for just a few more days, the need will pass!

oh yeah,,,,, Celebrate the Solstice
 
Last edited:
  • #16
I just finished my upper division electromagnetism class yesterday. Need I say more?

I'll give Griffiths a present, my fist in his face.
 
  • #17
Why the hostility? I thought he did a pretty good job.
 
  • #18
The book was fine

The murderous rage that fills me from having to take the class isnt.
 
  • #19
What is your major?
 
  • #20
physics

it was just soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard. Our professor was nuts too, he'd be lecturing and then skip like 30 steps and we'd just stare in amazement as he did triple integrals in his head.

Then of course when the final answer came, he would be like "... hmm wait... there's suppose to be a 4 pi there...*puts 4 pi in the answer*... ok there we go, that's the dipole in spherical coordinates, any questions?" .

im so glad I am out of there for the semester
 
  • #21
Pengwuino said:
physics

it was just soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard. Our professor was nuts too, he'd be lecturing and then skip like 30 steps and we'd just stare in amazement as he did triple integrals in his head.

Then of course when the final answer came, he would be like "... hmm wait... there's suppose to be a 4 pi there...*puts 4 pi in the answer*... ok there we go, that's the dipole in spherical coordinates, any questions?" .

im so glad I am out of there for the semester

Ah, the Pierre LaPlace method of teaching. Pierre LaPlace - Patron Saint of Math Teachers

Actually, I think the only math teacher I ever had like that was a student teacher in algebra in high school. He could only step through about half of each problem before he just couldn't take it anymore and had to jump to the solution.
 
  • #22
BobG said:
Good thing you didn't mention:

"Jack Frost roasting o'er an open fire
Chestnuts nipping at your toes"

That's my favorite Christmas song.

My kids seldom dreamed of candy canes and sugar plums around Christmas time.

Or my favorite song

"Reindeers roasting over an open fire
Chuck Norris just roundhouse-kicked your nose.
Although its been said my times, many ways:
Samuel L Jackson is cool..."

:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
 
  • #23
we celibrate SOL INVICTUS a proper fact based and older holiday
based on physics, the days getting longer for real,
the original 12-25 holiday, not the stolen one called x-mass

btw you can keep the tree, lights gifts and feasting
as that's all part of the SOL INVICTUS TRADITION
that was stolen along with the day
much like the spring holiday with rabits chic and eggs
that had nothing to do with JC but ester not easter
 
Last edited:
  • #24
Hurkyl said:
http://www.superlaugh.com/cmas/chimney.htm

Augmented with cutsey animation.

:smile: :smile: :smile:
I've never heard that one!
 
  • #25
BobG said:
Ah, the Pierre LaPlace method of teaching. Pierre LaPlace - Patron Saint of Math Teachers

Actually, I think the only math teacher I ever had like that was a student teacher in algebra in high school. He could only step through about half of each problem before he just couldn't take it anymore and had to jump to the solution.

I knew my math classes were getting too hard when the solutions manual answers started with, "The astute reader will have noticed.."
 
  • #26
I think Jesus would throw up if he were ever to see what a joke holiday Christmas has turned into.
 
  • #27
gravenewworld said:
I think Jesus would throw up if he were ever to see what a joke holiday Christmas has turned into.

It's still a wonderful time for families to get together.
 
  • #28
gravenewworld said:
I think Jesus would throw up if he were ever to see what a joke holiday Christmas has turned into.
Christmas was invented hundreds of years after his birth to replace a pagan holiday, I think he would have been appalled that it would have been invented period.
 
  • #29
Evo said:
Christmas was invented hundreds of years after his birth to replace a pagan holiday, I think he would have been appalled that it would have been invented period.

Or maybe he would have enjoyed the big birthday bash thrown for him every year! He was always the life of the party, making sure the wine never ran out. :biggrin:
 
  • #30
Moonbear said:
Or maybe he would have enjoyed the big birthday bash thrown for him every year!
I guess, he would, if he wasn't picky about the fact that Dec 25 wasn't really his birthday!

He was always the life of the party, making sure the wine never ran out. :biggrin:

I wonder what wines (i.e., grapes) were popular at the time? All the paintings I've seen show reds (and the water-to-wine miracle suggests a red wine), which is a not a bad thing, if they were drinking it with beef or lamb. But is there any historical mention of the kind of wine drunk? I would really be quite dismayed to find that they were having their burgers cooked rare with a glass of sauvignon blanc! Oh wait...they didn't have refrigerators at the time - that rules out most white and blush wines! <phew>

I also wonder what Jesus' favorite wine was. If I could turn water to wine, I'd probably make myself a nice, full-bodied cabernet with a hint of oak. What wine did Jesus choose to make for the wedding party?
 
Last edited: