'Christmas comes but once per year', or is it 'Christmas lasts but half a year'?

I just heard the first Christmas song of the year playing on the radio.

I am in the mood for Halloween and not Christmas. It is just not Christmas yet, and Christmas songs just dont go with this time of the year.

I think this blurring of the holidays into each other by commerce ruins the we are all celebrating this cosy holiday together feeling, because it is not longer special if there is not definate time when we are all celebrating.

Christmas is becomming so present so much of the time these days that it is becomming no more of a celebration time than Monday or the weekend. Reply to this

Apparently, there is a shop in the Netherlands which started selling Sinterklas(A December celebration, where kids get presents. They celebrate it, more than Christmas in the Netherlands) stuff in August. All the customers refused to go in the shop again, until the SinterKlas stuff was removed from the shelves, until close to SinterKlas. The shop owner had no choice but to remove the things from the shelves. Reply to this

Christmas is becomming so present so much of the time these days that it is becomming no more of a celebration time than Monday or the weekend.

Lol Mell, so true! Im also disappointed that Travel Camel has said that shops in Oz start selling christmas stuff in September, as when I was in Australia, I didn see much build-up thankfully and my theory was that they dont need to make a huge thing of it because its summer over there so they dont need it as a focus to get through the winter. I hate all the christmas build-up and I also think its a real case of the emperors new clothes. To put my undoubtedly cynical point across, there are 4 months of hype, anticipation, expectation and preparation - and for what? To arrive at a day where you will overeat, sit watching crap TV, fall out with your family, and end up in debt from all the spend spend spend which might take the next 6 months to clear.
As Mell says, all the holidays just blur into each other these days, and all for consumer purposes. No sooner have we put christmas behind us, than Valentines Day stuff appears in the shops (and that never used to be such a huge thing), then Mothers day stuff straight after that, possibly concurrently with Easter build-up (not counting creme eggs which will have appeared on Jan 2nd). Then there may be a very small gap, that is quickly filled by Fathers day build-up alongside multiple reasons to spend just because its summer. And then you get Christmas, Halloween (which again in England NEVER used to be such a big thing as it is now) and Bonfire Night all converging in on each other.
To leave on another cynical note - we seem to have become the proles in Orwells 1984, constantly being fed with distractions. always via the consumer route, so that weve got no time to notice how unhappy we really are... Reply to this

Unfortunately the lead up to the Australian "summer" Christmas is just as bad as Debbie and Shane have described. However, we manage to go even further for those originally from the Northern Hemisphere who can't get used to hot Christmases (it's too hot for full roast dinner and pud when it is 38 degrees Celsius outside - although many do it regardless- so BBQs, buffets and light meals are becoming more usual). We also have "Christmas in July" (winter over here-so roast dinner is better then). Many hotels, restaurants and pubs do them and they will be advertising them for anything up to 6 weeks before the event. So we get a double whammy!! Reply to this

Hi,

Christmas always special for me, i am always waiting for this.

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