Is Christmas Ruined Forever?

[omgur2]

But Santa Claus is real, he exists inside each one of us. However I feel your pain. I have a 4 and 5 year old that have noticed that some presents come from Santa and some are given by others? I want them to believe in the magic as long as possible and will avoid any extended family member this year that may ruin it. We also teach about the true meaning of Christmas emphasizing that its Jesus' birthday and what that means. But how much longer to I get to see that wonder in there eyes this time of year.

 

[2jakes]

Lily and I had this discussion yesterday. She's almost 5. I asked her how Santa could come down our chimney, but the squirrels and birds can't come down. She informed me that there is a Santa Door in the chimney, and he has a magic key that he can use once a year to come and bring presents, so that keeps everyone else from being able to come in. I had to laugh at her logic. To her, he still is magic.

She also "knows" that he shops at Target as well as elves making toys, that's why she got a present from Target as a Santa gift last year, and why he used wrapping paper that she saw at our local craft store. (She's wicked smart that way. I can barely keep up with her sometimes!)

Our view on parenting her is to let her be a child while she's a child. She will lose her imaginative innocence soon enough once she's in school. I'm okay with her believing in good people being kind, and helping others to have a happier celebration.

To omgur2 & Babydoll
Beautiful...Thanks for Sharing !

btw: LizzieMaine...why was the Christmas tree taken down so soon ? [huh]

 

[dh66]

Thank you all for sharing some of your Christmas traditions here. Thank you, really. Reading them made me think about how we did it in my childhood, like how we always had supper with my mom's parents on Christmas eve because my granddad worked in the mines and would get double time for working on Christmas day and, well, sometimes you do what you have to do to get by. I remember my grandmother's silver tinsel Christmas tree that my mom always complained was tacky, and how Christmas didn't seem right without it when she finally got rid of it when we were teens, and how thank God by then we were old enough to understand why we didn't get any presents there because the mines had shut down and my granddad didn't have a job.
I thought about driving around looking at all the lights with my parents (extra thanks Lizzie) and how that's one thing I still do with my own kids, and how happy it made me inside the other night when my daughter asked if we were going to do that again this year.
I thought about Grant's and Woolworth's and being allowed to ask Santa for a toy from the Sears catalog. I thought about my grandmother and grandfather on my dad's side and how we would get together at their house on the farm on Christmas day afternoon, with all my cousins and aunts and uncles and what a really big deal that was and how it just wasn't the same after they died.
I'm thankful that I'm having lunch in a Chinese restaurant right now while I read a and write and remember all this so that anyone who notices a tear running down my cheek will think it's just from those little nuclear peppers in the General Tso chicken.
You guys have made my afternoon. Thank you again and I hope you all get a wonderful holiday no matter how you believe.

 

[Big Man]

... I'm thankful that I'm having lunch in a Chinese restaurant right now while I read a and write and remember all this so that anyone who notices a tear running down my cheek will think it's just from those little nuclear peppers in the General Tso chicken.
You guys have made my afternoon. Thank you again and I hope you all get a wonderful holiday no matter how you believe.

I must be eating at that same Chinese restaurant, because the same thing happens to me when I think of all those wonderful Christmas memories from what is now so long ago.

 

[2jakes]

Chinese restaurant ???
You must live near the Bumpuses with their dogs ...

Christmas catalog & Santa...I always thought of them as one...

 

[Benny Holiday]

By picking up on the fairytale remark you are missing the point of my post. And please notice that I wasn't preaching!


Why not? How does this differ from the blessing stuff in your own posts?

The topic raised here was Santa Claus. I simply didn't see the need for you to take a little swipe at one of the central tenets of the Christian faith in your post. Were we discussing the feast tradition of Ramadan, would you have thought itfappropriate to throw in a comment about the veracity of Mohammed's teachings? In more than 8 years here & well over 2000 posts I've never involved myself in any controversies on the Lounge, but tbh I found the Bethlehem quip offensive & inappropriate.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I thought about driving around looking at all the lights with my parents (extra thanks Lizzie) and how that's one thing I still do with my own kids, and how happy it made me inside the other night when my daughter asked if we were going to do that again this year.

All I have to do is step outside my door because my neighbourhood is where EVERYBODY goes to look at the lights around here.
I shot this video down the street from my house. This family was giving out free popcorn, cotton candy and hot chocolate.

[video=youtube;ocmrEr2Mltc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocmrEr2Mltc[/video]

 

[LizzieMaine]

To omgur2 & Babydoll
Beautiful...Thanks for Sharing !

btw: LizzieMaine...why was the Christmas tree taken down so soon ? [huh]

The kind of trees we always got shed very very fast. By noontime Xmas day, it was nearly bald -- and if it turned out to be a cat spruce, well, they're so called because the needles give off the smell of a litter box.

We were usually able to get most of the decorations off before Ma pitched it out the door, but most of the tinsel stayed on it right up until springtime.

 

[Big Man]

All I have to do is step outside my door because my neighbourhood is where EVERYBODY goes to look at the lights around here.
I shot this video down the street from my house. This family was giving out free popcorn, cotton candy and hot chocolate.

[video=youtube;ocmrEr2Mltc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocmrEr2Mltc[/video]

Clark Griswold would be proud.

 

[2jakes]

The kind of trees we always got shed very very fast. By noontime Xmas day, it was nearly bald -- and if it turned out to be a cat spruce, well, they're so called because the needles give off the smell of a litter box.

We were usually able to get most of the decorations off before Ma pitched it out the door, but most of the tinsel stayed on it right up until springtime.

That is funny ! Thanks .

One Christmas Dad brought home an "artificial" tree .
But we missed the smell of the real tree. So mom had it returned &
we got the real McCoy even if started to shed ...we loved it !

 

[Babydoll]

We have an artificial tree, but I found these ScentSicles last year that smell like a real tree. Makes having an artificial more tolerable.

http://www.amazon.com/ScentSicles-Fresh-Cut-Pine-6p/dp/B005VFESFC

 

[2jakes]

We have an artificial tree, but I found these ScentSicles last year that smell like a real tree. Makes having an artificial more tolerable.

http://www.amazon.com/ScentSicles-Fresh-Cut-Pine-6p/dp/B005VFESFC

The contents contain petroleum distillates or isopropyl alcohol . I can just imagine
what would have happened if my grandma had put up an artificial tree. She liked to use lit candles on her
Christmas tree :eusa_doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've known people to hang those pine-tree car air fresheners on artificial Christmas trees to give them a festive coniferous scent. Sometimes they'll paint little ornaments on the air fresheners to camouflage them, but they don't fool anybody.

 

[Panadora]

Sorry if have offended anyone, that was certainly not my intention!

 

[Benny Holiday]

Sorry if have offended anyone, that was certainly not my intention!

Apology gratefully accepted. The over- commercialization of Christmas has probably got me a bit on edge this year. It's changed so much over the years it's barely recognizable as the same holiday I loved all those years ago.

 

[tonyb]

'Tis the most holy of retail seasons, for sure.

As to metal trees ...

As Noah Cross, the character John Ford portrayed in "Chinatown," put it ... "'course I’m respectable. I’m old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

Tinsel trees are now old. They've been around since my early childhood, and I'm middle-aged only by a quite expansive definition.

I'm old enough now to get a bit misty-eyed over aluminum Christmas trees. (Perhaps sentimentality is another symptom of advancing years.) Kinda want one, with the spotlight with the rotating color wheel, so that the tree changes color every few seconds. That would be ... cool.

 

[2jakes]

I've known people to hang those pine-tree car air fresheners on artificial Christmas trees to give them a festive coniferous scent. Sometimes they'll paint little ornaments on the air fresheners to camouflage them, but they don't fool anybody.

Coniferous ? [huh]

Let me check....."relating to part of the tree bearing ----------yada-yada-yada"


Oh... I got it ...CONES !

Thanks.....I learnt a new word !


Edit: The realization that most everyone knows this word & all I have proven is how
ignorant I am for all to see. & now " Christmas is ruined forever"...:eusa_doh:

 

[31 Model A]

I don't put up a tree anymore. I have a few things around the sitting room that is considered Christmas spirit and two Poinsettias to decorate with also. As to a tree, I gave it away.

 

[jamespowers]

I must be eating at that same Chinese restaurant, because the same thing happens to me when I think of all those wonderful Christmas memories from what is now so long ago.

I think it must be catchy because I got the same thing.
It sort of stinks to be what I call an adult orphan as my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all gone now. My children have never seen any of them. Sort of hard to give them that tradition but my wife and I remember them and carry on the same traditions. I also remember to tell them stories about my family to make it even more personal. No one ever truly dies who is still remembered.
Darn that spicy chili!

 

[jamespowers]

All I have to do is step outside my door because my neighbourhood is where EVERYBODY goes to look at the lights around here.
I shot this video down the street from my house. This family was giving out free popcorn, cotton candy and hot chocolate.

[video=youtube;ocmrEr2Mltc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocmrEr2Mltc[/video]

I'll be there in ten minutes!