The decorations have been up since before Halloween. Two months of culturally expected and enforced smiles and good will wears me out. I want it over and done with now.

I've never been a big fan of the season. I don't like cold. I don't like being told how to feel, and I don't like people who I know really, really wish I would have a cerebral aneurysm, preferably while they watch and cheer, putting on a jovial face, offering seasons greetings and cheesy gifts.

The forced niceness always seems to blow back in the form of dark resentments and passive-aggressive behavior at a later date. I would much rather if the whole year could be kept at a nice even keel. With a consistent well-cultivated civility that doesn't ignore the fact that sometimes people don't like each other. But that we can get along on a civil and functional level. We can as long as nobody bends themselves out of shape forcing themselves to be excessively nice.

I want Christmas to end. I want it to be over, if possible ... for good.

Note: implied violence, possibly NSFW, and one oddly shaped object that shouldn't shock you if you know what it is. If you don't; it is just an oddly shaped object.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/christmas_is_overfor_good.php

For many people, the Christmas holiday season is stressful and negative. It brings up all the old business, whether personal or with family.

I can never get into the "Christmas Spirit" until a few days before the event. It's more hassle than happy up to that point. But I generally succeed; and I try to take things on my own terms whenever possible, and let the rest slide like water off a duck. Overall, it was a successful season for me; lots of positives, few negatives. It's not always that way, but you take 'em when you can get 'em.

Another way to look at all the Christmas stuff and people that drive you nuts: this is enforced survival training. It's the plane-crash-with-total-strangers scenario. As a species, we are social because we need others for our long-term survival. So, how do you enhance your skill set in this situation? How do you shape your behaviour to achieve a worthwhile objective? How do you shape your behaviour to shape other people's behaviour in positive ways? If your brain is engaged and you apply mental discipline to an honourable objective, you can learn much about yourself; and find bridges and heal wounds with others.

My $0.02.

I love Christmas, gift cards and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the 1964 original with Burl Ives).

This city is friendlier and prettier during the holidays and snowstorms -- two reasons I enjoy both. Could do without the Christmas stuff showing up at Halloween.

Bah humbug creeps in around shopping crowds, but online shopping has greatly alleviated that -- I didn't battle mall mobs this year, at all.

... and a Happy New Year!!

Art, I hear you.

I wanted to start hanging mall santas and bell ringer with garland the week before thanksgiving. I'm not proud of it, but it's true.

The more we allow the pop culture to drag us away from Christmas and toward Xmas, the less sense it all makes. The decay became even more clear to me as I watched a TV ad where with great fanfare, a national retail chain advertised the holiday as "Giftmas".

All religious views aside, movies like "The Town Christmas Forgot" help bring back the spirit of the season.

http://www.daemonstv.com/2010/11/24/the-town-christmas-forgot-hallmark-starring-lauren-holly/

One of the (many) nice things about being an atheist is ignoring christmas. It is sort of like being around sports fans at super bowl time, annoying but ignorable.

If pressed for a "seasonal" response, I mutter "Heathen's Greetings". Nobody seems to notice.....

Nomad

I love the lights, music and the festive atmosphere as well as the cards and holiday get together's. I don't like the crowds or the traffic near the shopping malls. I avoid malls year round anyway!

I also think the season gets extended a bit too long.

...

Actually, if you wish to be historically accurate the term X-mas much more religiously centered, by genuine religious fanatics even, than the term Christmas. The X in X-mas was to symbolize a name too holy to be pronounced.

Of course if you wish to be biblical Christmas would be in March instead of December. A shift that allowed it to be pushed as a replacement for the perfectly good Roman celebration of Saturnalia. Saturnalia actually sounds like more fun than what we ended up with.

A mild description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia

The whole X-mas versus Christmas versus holidays thing highlights one of the issues I have with it. Everyone wants to use it to promote their religion and advance their cause. Instead of just deciding to celebrate to celebrate. The whole 'war on Christmas' theme has its origins in John Birch anti-PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. propaganda.

Of course even the supposedly secular stories, The Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol all were written as propaganda pieces to promote a very Presbyterian 'salvation by good works' theme. Point being that the winter solstice holidays have been manipulated to push one religion or another for so long that people forget the original meaning.

The original celebration, before the priests got hold of it, marked the lowest point for the sun. It meant that the fall, and harvest, was over. It was an orgy of consumption and living that very much aligned with the Roman ideal of 'eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die'. The hard winter would be here but while there was food to eat, wine to drink, and life in our bones we would give it hell. It was about building morale and spitting in the face of winter before 'the dying time' was upon us.

It was the last blowout to build community before hunkering down to withstand the cold, deprivation, and inevitable disease that would sweep through every agricultural hamlet. We forget that on either side of zero BC most children didn't live to see their first birthday, farm animals and people died for no apparent reason. Crops failed and stored food went bad. Death was a constant companion. But never more-so than during the depth of winter. Entire families perished. Sometimes entire towns died or went mad. The later part often coming from ergot poisoning. But at the time, in a pre-scientific age, it was all a mystery. The one thing that was known was that people who stayed organized, remained hopeful, and united tended to fare better. Both harvest and winter festivals were part of that survival strategy.

Of course, now, not so many people starve. The various religions have hijacked an otherwise useful festival. Even Saturnalia was an overlay of a less religious festival. Worse of it all, now, for commercial reasons, the powers that be have take it from a few days to three solid months of moderated levity and religious propaganda. A spiritual and economic forced march. If they could limit it to a week I would like it more. If they could remove the religious/supernatural overtones and return it to a pre-winter pep rally and celebration of life I would like that even more.

With the new year we can all get back to normal life.

Wow, who would have thought that people wanted to ditch Christmas. Sure it has been too commercialized, sure there are idiots who don't want to offend anyone with the name of Christ in Christmas. But really do away with Christmas for petty reasons like " tired of forced smiles and joviality" or whatever seems too much like Mr. Scrooge to me. Christmas is a time where people SHOULD force themselves to be happy and cheerful even if they're not! Why should we stop doing what Millions of People enjoy just because a few people have to be fake? ( I love my Christmas lol) Oh yeah and the "Xmas" That is an abbreviation for "Christmas" The "X" stands for Christ. There is a greek letter that looks like X and makes the Ch in Christ so to make it easy we just say "X" in stead of saying Christmas. ( although I wish we would say Christmas more)And I do think it is crazy to set up decorations at Halloween (we always do it on the day after thanksgiving) anyway, just my $0.02. And if you are wondering Yeah I am a Christian and not ashamed to say it, or the name of Jesus Christ!
Keeping it Real for the King of Reality,
Adventureboy

Regardless of the commercial downside, Christmas brings out the best in people. Whenever the time comes around, I'm unexpectedly in a giving mood every single year. I notice that some gifts mean way more to the recipient than the money means to me. It may sound hokie, but I'm typically the one who actually gets the present when I see appreciation on another person's face.

Christmas time is what you make of it. My suggestion is that if you have a problem with all the Christmas fanfare, then try to keep it simple and just give to some people in need. You'll most likely find out that the real gift is to yourself.

And, no, there is no better time of the year to give. Christmas time is it. Lots of people are depressed around this time period to the point of wanting to kill themselves. Also, people who are not in the best of health just feel like giving up for some reason around Christmas. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's them looking around and being depressed that they have no loved ones in their lives. If you're not depressed to the point of being about to die, then you're one of the stronger ones. Use your strength to pull up someone else up.

Peace

I feel very badly for anyone who is sick of Christmas. The old adage "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" comes to mind.

I think those factors are involved, along with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This very real depression is caused by a lack of sunlight, which peaks at the Winter Solstice which in the Northern Hemisphere occurs around the 21st of December. SAD is treated by placing a bright wide-spectrum light source near the patient for several hours a day. Obviously, they didn't have a light souce like that in ancient times. It is for that reason (I believe) that Christmas and many primitive festivals (some featuring 'light' as a focus) are held on or near the Winter Solstice. The ancient Christian churches don't claim that Dec 25th is the actual birth date of Jesus. The date was officially adoped by yhe churches as the celebration of the birth of Jesus about 350 AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice.