Grinch Corner

Some excellent Grinch-tendacies here, plus some that put the Grinch to shame!

It’s the present-buying that really hacks me off. The meaning and sentiment has changed, and it can be a stressful and time-consuming expense for little purpose. Children - yes, but why go OTT? Peer pressure and social convention is not something many will buck. I like the idea of giving a little ‘treat’ to people you care about, but only if the receiver will appreciate them and the giver enjoys the process.

 

My neighbour is just putting up one of those strings of dribbly bright blue-white LED lights round her house. Meant to look like icicles or something. She already has a light-up reindeer next to our kitchen window which has enough wattage to illuminate the whole of her garden. It’s on as well now.

 

Neither do the Portuguese. We don't have card shops anyway. They have gone in for all the trees, lights and the towns decorate these past years ... and Santa Clause hangs from a verandah/balcony!

 

I stopped celebrating Christmas years ago, but I have a couple of special Christmas rituals:
Christmas Eve, I sit on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) and read all the tweets mentioning the various supermarkets - Asda ends to be particularly fruitful. Some are from people complaining that their Christmas delivery hasn't arrived, or has arrived minus the turkey, and now Christmas is Ruined.Then there are the people actually in-store complaining that there's no turkey/fresh cream/fresh flowers at 4pm on Christmas Eve and Christmas is Ruined. It's all the better when people post pictures and videos of the crowds and huge till queues.

On Christmas Day itself, I look for all the accounts of rotten turkeys, which of course cause Christmas to be Ruined. Additionally, there's a lot of fun to be had under the actual hashtag #ChristmasIsRuined.

My main gripe about Christmas is that it makes it absolutely miserable to do any normal shopping for the whole of December. My local Morrisons tends to have the Salvation Army Brass Band playing outside in the carpark and it's so loud you can hear it from my house about a quarter of a mile away.

The awful telly is no longer a problem since I stream everything nowadays, so am able to completely ignore the festive lineup.

 

Oo @Escarpment I’d love the #C’masIsRuined pages! Fancy expecting your Xmas Eve delivery to actually have everything you needed! These people are so lucky, so fortunate… I say that because if that’s all they have to worry about then what a lovely life they have.

I agree that ‘normal’ shopping is ruined for all of December. Sometimes, around Dec 23rd, I need to get bread for my disabled Dad, or milk to take to work with me. I don’t want to queue with the people buying 20 tins of sweets thank you.

 

Has anyone taken into account how much Christmas costs the NHS, I'm sure there must be lots of accidents regarding falling off ladders while putting up lights/decorations, then there is all the over eating and drinking that goes on.

I'm sure on the grounds of Health and Safety it should be totally banned, and in these sad times of having to make "Difficult Choices" it's only right that the whole thing is done away with.
Just think of all that time people take off work, its ridiculous, and it does absolutely nothing to "Grow the Economy" let alone fill the "22 Billion Black Hole".

Times is hard.

 

Therein lies another rub OH has all the intuition and sensitivity of a JCB when it comes to giving presents. I've spent 45 years trying to get through to him what (most) girlies like and definitely what I like, with an astounding lack of success. Nothing will beat his 21st birthday present to his first wife, though. Shouldn't think many 21-year olds get a bread bin from the love of their lives
You can see why it was a relief to scrap the whole idea

 

We don't celebrate Xmas. If other people want to, that's fine but the "Christmas Ruined" stories above made me laugh.
For me it's the endless Xmas muzac in the shops and the miles of Xmas tat to fight your way thru Not forgetting those dreadful Blow Up Santas which people install in their front gardens and wave about. Makes me want to go and stick a pin in them and watch them shrivel
On a slightly more serious note, I used to volunteer as an advisor with a local CAB some 20+ years ago. The number of people who came in to ask advice on their debt problems in the following couple of months after Xmas was awful. So many seemed to feel they had to spend more over the season than they could afford simply because it was "expected". I presume it is still the case.
I do wonder too about those who light up the exterior of their house and their garden given the cost of power.

 

Never mind the economy, I'm amazed it hasn't been banned on religious grounds long before now

 

Those inflatable things last about 2 day around here, and then they just seem to be left - in a large collapsed heap on grass or wherever they've been put. Total waste of money.
I agree @Philippa . The whole thing has become ridiculous.
If you aren't religious, and/or don't have small children/grandchildren, then it should be a time to think of others who aren't fortunate enough to have a roof over their head, or food on the table, or a proper bed to sleep in.
My girls are older now, and we made a decision many years ago to stop the daft present giving thing. We give to charity [they choose their own] instead of buying me a present. I don't need any more 'stuff' and I feel that's what birthdays are for anyway. Every year, they get a load of tat from their father's side of the family. What a waste of money when it could be given to someone who really needs it.
No cards sent either - again, that money can be better spent IMO.
Lights, decorations, tree/wreath etc gets done about a week before Christmas. That's how it's always been done, and I always tried to make the girls see that it isn't about how much they get, or the cost of it, it's about the meaning behind it.
The ghastly woman who turned up at the shop my younger daughter works in, at tea time on Christmas Eve, wanting fresh coriander and then blaming the staff member who told her 'we don't sell it' for, and I quote, ''ruining her Christmas'', is a classic example of the utter stupidity of it all, and the selfish, self absorbed attitude nowadays.

 

That last paragraph would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.

 

That's amazing - I wouldn't expect to find fresh coriander in anything other than a large supermarket or asian grocery, and to be sure of getting some I would go in the morning, and not on a Sunday.

 

I would prefer Christmas dinner without coriander - can't stand the stuff!

 

Apparently it was for her 'special soup'. The irony is - there's a large Asda a few minutes walk away, plus a very large Tesco, and a Lidl -or the other one - another few minutes drive away. Probably all of them would have had fresh coriander.
As I said to my daughter - 'if it was so special, why did she wait until late on Christmas Eve to get the ingredients she needed?' Everyone else's fault of course....

If that had been me, and I'd forgotten something for the Christmas dinner, I'd just have said 'soup's off' -you'll have to stuff your faces with more bread or chocolate instead.
People are far too far up themselves nowadays, and can't accept that it's one meal, on one day, and it simply isn't that important.