Christmas

[imthatlady]

jesus christ, I just looked at the date on my phone and it's already the 23rd?!!? WTF?! that means I have 2 more days(counting today) to shop and I still need to buy gifts for at least 6 more people!? what's really annoying is I work in the damn mall yet, I still find lil time to do some shopping cuz I'm becoming a "workaholic". actually, I supposedly went shopping last thurs with my friends but spent a shit load on myself instead hey, I haven't shopped in so long! but its ok, I like the hustlin'. HAHA. neways, is it just me or the vibe at the malls different during this holiday season? yeah, something abt it that makes me happy..like everyone's ina good mood to walk around n spend on others I worked yday n got out at 8:30 and the mall was packed as ****. I'm actually at work right now..its still early so no one is here so I get to go on here

neways, what are your xmas plans? anyone doing secret santa? you guys finished ur shopping? wrapping ur gifts? speaking of that, its gona b such a ***** to wrap them later

--edit-- ughh, who the **** shops 6:30 in the morning?! so bored n tired. but yeah, just a random fact about my mall-- there are birds flying around inside here..wtf eh

[Han Solo]

Merry christmas to everyone.

What do you think are the effects of advertisement on your christmas shopping?

P/s: try to keep things academic rather than random chat pls.

[yittz]

I don't like the way christmas has become so commercialised. People forget why they are getting gifts and buying them.

Still 'cheap' shopping and days off. Happy holidays everyone!! (ba humbug to xmas )

[GuGu]

I only buy gifts for kids under the age of 10 and my family members. And all my friends know that. I guess it's because people see it as just getting gifts and don't really appreciate it. But yeah, all my friends know that I have only been buying presents for kids so they don't expect anything from me anymore.

I bought my brother the Transformers DVD! I'm so excited, can't wait to 'borrow' it from him! hehehe
As for my parents I'm going to pay off one of their credit card debt. I was actually saving money to pay off my car, but I think they need it more than me.
As for my sister, I'm cooking her a nice lunch. With LOBSTERS!!!

[MrPhotastic]

Happy Holidays and be safe

[pemberly]

jesus christ, I just looked at the date on my phone and it's already the 23rd?!!? WTF?! that means I have 2 more days(counting today) to shop and I still need to buy gifts for at least 6 more people!? what's really annoying is I work in the damn mall yet, I still find lil time to do some shopping cuz I'm becoming a "workaholic". actually, I supposedly went shopping last thurs with my friends but spent a shit load on myself instead hey, I haven't shopped in so long! but its ok, I like the hustlin'. HAHA. neways, is it just me or the vibe at the malls different during this holiday season? yeah, something abt it that makes me happy..like everyone's ina good mood to walk around n spend on others I worked yday n got out at 8:30 and the mall was packed as ****. I'm actually at work right now..its still early so no one is here so I get to go on here

the first thing you do is use the lord's name in vain in your Christmas topic.

shopping has been insane. my friend went to burlington mall on saturday and she said some people like made 3 rows of cars, so when those ppl came out after a long day of shopping, they couldn't get their cars out.

[JamesG]

Have a happy Christmas everyone!

[Thor]

Happy Holidays to everyone here.
I am waiting for my flight to return to return to Toronto, Have been delayed for 2 hours already. So I use some of my waiting time to comment on this thread.

I want to begin by saying that I am not a Christmas pooper or anti Christ nor am I anti Christians.

Since the thread is intended to be about Christmas, lets talk about Christmas.

What is christmas about? anyway.
I know, I know. You will say that that is to celebrate Jesus's birth.

A lot of people that celebrate christmas are non christians. Christmas to many is about giving gifts, getting together and party. It has become so very commercialised that the true reasons are often forgotten.

And regarding Jesus birth, I have been reading a lot about it. The only proof of Jesus birth or Jesus being real is in the Bible which is written and edited over centuries by men.
Sad to say, there is no proof that historically Jesus exist.

So what are we celebrating?
And imthatlady, give your money to the needy instead.

, don't ask me what I am doing in NYC?, how much I spent? or what I spend them on?

[yearning]

Meh, we don't celebrate. I am not religious and I only really 'celebrate' no school and my parents celebrate 'no work'. And I feel that Christmas has been going downhill ever since I came to North America 16 years ago....so yeah, quite pointless.

The one thing that really sucks about Christmas--all the stores are closed, wtf.

[yittz]

Jesus isn't even born on Christmas, many Christians know (or at least should know) that. Since no one knows when JC was born, they use this day to signify his birth. St Nicolas Claus? also handed out presents to POOR children - that became the BS tradition of Santa Claus and giving presents.

The great thing about xmas is having the roads to yourself - you can cruise around (or learn to).

[Han Solo]

Some questions:

What is the significance of the chrismas eve mass and how different from it from other prayer days?

What is the name of the early church council that fixed 25/12 as the day of birth of christ?

Is there really, as thor said, no historical records of christ as a man? - personally i think that given the huge volume of biblical records about the man and the fact that the romans knew about it seems pretty self evident itself.

Merry christmas,
Han Solo

[fridaythe13th]

Does it really matter which day He was born? The most important thing is to celebrate the greatest gift God has given to humankind. What is important is that God sent His beloved Son unto (or into?) the world to die for our sins so that the doors of Heaven and eternal life may be open to us.

Christmas should be a time of remembrance and celebration of what God has given us. It should be a time to show others the love, joy and peace that Christ has shown us. Not a time to burn holes in your wallets.....

May the God of Peace bless you all this Christmas.

[mind_wander]

Merry Christmas everyone, as for the single people out there. Yes, this is a true holiday called: Happy Human Light; its dedicated to the people, who kinda or sorta celebrate Christmas, but this is your holiday, however you wished to celebrate it. I had heard of the minority crowd, who hates Christmas holiday because it makes them really depressed. Glad to give a shout out to them I never forget those people hiding behind the Christmas lovers; you also are cool in my book.

[pemberly]

Here's an interesting article from the nytimes about the real st. nicholas.

December 25, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
St. Nick in the Big City
By JOHN ANTHONY McGUCKIN

ST. NICHOLAS was a super-saint with an immense cult for most of the Christian past. There may be more icons surviving for Nicholas alone than for all the other saints of Christendom put together. So what happened to him? Where’s the fourth-century Anatolian bishop who presided over gift-giving to poor children? And how did we get the new icon of mass consumerism in his place?

Well, it’s a New York story.

In all innocence, the morphing began with the Dutch Christians of New Amsterdam, who remembered St. Nicholas from the old country and called him Sinte Klaas. They had kept alive an old memory — that a kindly old cleric brought little gifts to the poor in the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Nativity. While the gifts were important, they were never meant to overshadow the message of Jesus’s humble birth.

But today’s chubby Santa is not about giving to the poor. He has had his saintly garb stripped away. The filling out of the figure, the loss of the vestments, and his transformation into a beery fellow smoking a pipe combined to form a caricature of Dutch peasant culture. Eventually this Magic Santa (a suitable patron saint if there ever was one for the burgeoning capitalist machinery of the city) was of course popularized by the Manhattanite Clement Clarke Moore published in “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” in The Troy (New York) Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823.

The newly created deity Santa soon attracted a school of iconographers: notable among them were Thomas Nast, whose 1863 image of a red-suited giant in Harper’s Weekly set the tone, and Haddon Sundblom, who drew up the archetypal image we know today on behalf of the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. This Santa was regularly accompanied by the flying reindeer: godlike in his majesty and presiding over the winter darkness like Odin the sky god returned.

The new Santa also acquired a host of Nordic elves to replace the small dark-skinned boy called Black Peter, who in Christian tradition so loved St. Nicholas that he traveled with him everywhere. But, some might say, wasn’t it better to lose this racially stereotyped relic? Actually, no, considering the real St. Nicholas first came into contact with Peter when he raided the slave market in his hometown and railed against the trade. The story tells us that when the slavers refused to take him seriously, he used the church’s funds to redeem Peter and gave the boy a job in the church.

And what of the throwing of the bags of gold down the chimney, where they landed in the stockings and little shoes that had been hung up to dry by the fireplace? Charming though it sounds, it reflected the deplorable custom, still prevalent in late Roman society when the Byzantine church was struggling to establish the supremacy of its values, of selling surplus daughters into bondage. This was a euphemism for sexual slavery — a trade that still blights our world.

As the tale goes, Nicholas had heard that a father in the town planned to sell his three daughters because his debts had been called in by pitiless creditors. As he did for Black Peter, Nicholas raided his church funds to secure the redemption of the girls. He dropped the gold down the chimney to save face for the impoverished father.

This tale was the origin of a whole subsequent series of efforts among the Christians who celebrated Nicholas to make some effort to redeem the lot of the poor — especially children, who always were, and still are, the world’s front-line victims. Such was the origin of Christmas almsgiving: gifts for the poor, not just gifts for our friends.

I like St. Nicholas. You can keep chubby Santa.

[remember_Cedric]

Meh, we don't celebrate. I am not religious and I only really 'celebrate' no school and my parents celebrate 'no work'. And I feel that Christmas has been going downhill ever since I came to North America 16 years ago....so yeah, quite pointless.

The one thing that really sucks about Christmas--all the stores are closed, wtf.

Hahaha hey imthatlady, I like how u begin this thread.

Well I'm a believer, but semi-christian, I consider myself. Christmas is more of a get-together time with family and friends. Well yes, exchange of gifts too. And, going to church...unfortunately, is not a usual practice for me.

And, I really like that part of your post, Yearning ....especially the ending. LOL (oh yeah, I don't excuse myself from swearings.)

[sarakoth]

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Don't bite anyone's ears please.

(if anyone knew where that came from, pm me.)