Yup, it’s coming around again. Xmas. I noted with resigned horror that tacky tinsel and tired Xmas trees have been dragged out of various shop’s storerooms and bored staffies have thrown the decorations randomly in the direction of said trees - if it fits, it sits. Wait until Boney M muzak starts spewing out of mall PA systems - ack! Now I love the festering season purely because I can put up decorations, agonise over the colour scheme of my fancy black xmas tree, family dinner (our turn this year), and I love making decorations and creating gifts for everyone fortunate enough (or unfortunate - choose your pick)to fall within the family and friend circle. I’ve been like this since my childhood and I am unrepentant. Hubby refuses to let me put Santa and his reindeer (lights) on the roof. Party pooper. Not that I have any such lights but you never know… But…the rush, noise, heat, kiddy tantrums, blaring music, trashy decorations, bored shop employees, etc.? No ways! And there are going to be several “bah humbug!” responses here, I’ll bet!
I love this time of year - good summer fun in the sun, a full 10 days holiday, thunderstorms … ;D
and yeah, getting to spend a few days with the family (I’m not married or anything, I go visit my mom usually from about the 23rd to the 27th)
I also love making gifts, so fortunately don’t have to even go into the shops and listed to the horrible tunes and see the horrible decorations… My local corner grocery store is good enough for me. sure, they’ve put up a tree by the fresh produce section and have tinsel and shit for sale in the toy section, but thats about it…
Just lucky I guess 
i stay the hell away from the shops over xmas, and any all forms of vacation destination.
i hate kids, and screaming kids, and screaming kids with useless parents, and fat people pushing against me, and fat people with kids, etc etc etc
thus. xmas for me is a non-event. i have often gone quite happily just taking advantage of the gammon at woolies, and nomming all day with the kids. no tinsel, no nothing.
but now, with my s/o’s mum having passed on, i wonder now, if i should make a big deal. she used to do like, decorations and the whole shebang. presents and the whole toot. now with only the viking and his dad left, and not an xmas molecule to be found, should i take the reigns? would it be tasteless to take over, considering his mum died like half a minute ago? it’s their first xmas without her.
i dont want to be a jackass, but i dont want them to feel neglected and stuff either.
being an atheist, i would imagine xmas to be kinda pointless, but it’s nice to do the family thing, but if the family thing includes praying and church and all that kak, i’m outta there.
I (we) dont do xmas itself, no gifts to family or friends (and by now they know better than to buy me), I humoured my kids (still do to an extent) when they were little with a gift or two, but generally I try to run away from the noise and the people over this period. Its a public holiday and those I want to spend at home with a good book, long weekends are to be treasured.
I will cook up something fancy that I bought in October/November, but that is as far as I would go for celebrating the day itself. We get invited to the family every year, and we decline it every time, both sides of the family.
This year I’m planning a picnic in the garden with a bucket full of prawns, its just the S/O and myself as the kids are taking themselves on holiday, so I’m rather looking forward to it!
I buy my gifts during the year whenever I see something on special that I think one of my family will like (I’m often wrong–last year I bought Scallywag a Rastafarian multi-coloured crocheted hat and matching scarf (R20 on the street in Fish Hoek). She checked me skeef and has never worn them. A cheapskate’s lot is not always a happy one.) We don’t take leave over the period because the bosses take their leave at that time, so those of us who go to work spend our time playing cricket in the parking lot. We spend the time off on the beach or in the mountains.
That just had to be quoted ;D 
the list continues, but i will spare everyone here the trauma.
I’m not accustomed to you holding back, and I demand my entertainment. Please feel free to continue the list… those who are adversly affected by your statements has the freedom to seek trauma counselling.
i hate kids that have been given a piece of chocolate off the shelves to shut them the fuck up, and then stare at you with brown dribble coming from their vacant faces. i hate people who stands in the middle of the motherfucking aisle, pondering whether to purchase one brand of fat-laden mayonaisse as opposed to another. i hate promo chicks who look bored as fuck trying to get you to sample their piece of sausage that has been wading in a shallow pond of hardening lard. i hate the guys who unpack the stock, and have their trollies in the middle of the aisle, and then you have to wait for some douchebag coming from the opposide side with his fat child to first find a GPS signal so he can find his way around the blockage. i hate blonde, plastic-titted bimbos, having cellphone conversations, and forget that i am about to ram my trolley up her dimpled ass if she doesnt move out of the way. i hate hand-eye-coordination-inept fucks who ram into the back of my heels when im wearing flipflops. i hate parents who cant control their slobbering, tantrum throwing spawn, and let them wail at a million decibels. (i do enjoy, however, to stare at said spawn and make them shutup out of fear. works with yapping dogs as well). i hate tellers who are so busy recounting last night’s isidingo with their colleague, that they cant greet me back. i hate said colleague for breaking the eggs i took 10 minutes carefully selecting, checking the underside of each tray for a wet spot. i hate items that dont have pricing on. i do. i really fucking do. coz i am a pedantic shit, and i want to see how Pick’nPay is stealing from me. i hate carguards running at you wanting to help you with your trolley, when you want to build up speed, hop on, and ride it to your car. also, unless i have bought a goddamn hippo, or have no arms, im sure i can lift three bags of catfood into my boot. i hate kugels in suburban offroad vehicles who do four million point turns, to get in or out of a parking spot. i hate the retarded fuck who stands on the wrong side of the road, waiting to take her parking spot, then i cant get past either of these evolutionary throwbacks. i hate douchebags who has their music blaring, and all you can hear is some random hiphop fuckhead talking about ho’s and money and bling and lowriders and other universally useless shit. i hate that these asshats cause my pancreas to hurt with the bass vibrating through their pimped out corsa’s bodywork. i hate that it seems to be imfuckingpossible to get accross the concept of a fourway stop. finally, i hate when i get home, unpack my shit, and realise i forgot to buy the shit that kills the mozzies thats robbing me of my sanity.
You never fail to cheer me up!
Ah, GCG, I am laughing so hard my boss has come out of his ivory tower to give me the glares. I’m laughing because your descriptive hate list is just so filled with fire and brimstone and all for the right reasons, and done so tastefully too. You have put all our pet hates into one package, rolled it into a ball, set fire to it and whacked it down the aisle! And still, I like Xmas!
GCG: you inspire me…
I hate fucking morons who have fucking kids who have no fucking respect for a person’s fucking property. Hence they shall pull their fucking crapheap up next to your car, and depart by wildly flinging open their fucking doors, wrecking mine, which will take a lot of fucking money to fix. And the fucking parents just stand there and look on while asshat jr. destroys your property. The only response is to tell them to “hurry up” before they slink away to go buy huge bags of pap. I mean your list is fine 'an all, but irritation I can bear. People who have no fucking clue where they are going with a trolley and 20 kids in a chock-full isle get my neckhair up, but I can “deal” with it. But getting back to your ruined car with some rustbucket standing next to it, or worse, nothing at all… god damn I cannot bear that shit.
preach it boogie
I hate kids. Period. And I have one. Although I don’t hate him. But fek knows how he’s managed to make it to the ripe age of 25 without being strangeled and dumped in the veld nearby. Though I do hate my stepson. He’s an asshole.
Correction of typo “strangled” and not “strangeled” (it’s the scretarial training, can’t stand typos!). What the heck does this have to do with xmas? Buggrall. But it makes me feel better.
So, judging to the very descriptive posts in this thread, we can safely assume its:
“not to cheer”
Ho Ho Ho
That seems to be the general consensus. But the debate, if it is that, has changed from xmas-related hates/loves/likes to I-hate-kids-who… So the jury (to me at least) is still out on cheer or not to cheer. And I quietly peep out a “ho! Ho! Ho!”.
Priceless, X-Mass is going to rock this year because this thread DELIVERS!!
Cyghost: Cool - I’ll scan and mail you a mince pie
CHRISTmas (there’s a hint here) is only cool because: You get time off to braai, eat too much, drink too much, and just do nothing with family. These are all things I can really “get behind”. But the other 80% of the time you have to deal with “christmas cheer” being shoved down your throat, special xmas beggars, special xmas greetings, “decorations” (BIG air quotes), having to buy buttloads of stuff for people who’d be “sad” if you didn’t, every time you enter anywhere. I’m just not one for it. I hate being so absolutely coerced into having to do anything, much less “celebrate” just because there is nowhere I can go to get away. I don’t know the source of this special loathing of “the holiday season”. But I do loathe it.
My least favourite activity ON EARTH is to bear the brunt of a billion “geseende kersfees!” greetings on “black morning”. Can we just like, put up a grammaphone that says it 50 times and have it over with?
I am the grinch and scrooge’s illegitimate love child, even in the years BA (Before atheism).
Off-time: Cool, Xmas: Teh suck.
True story.
ps. I’m avoiding the whole boney-m subject for fear of popping an aneurysm.