KeithD
Admin
Admin
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Re:Lots going on - where is everybody? - 2004/12/13 09:56
Original values - well, that's either giving thanks to whatever because the winter solstice had passed, as though "whatever" had something to do with it, and looking forward to being able to get a nice suntan in the back garden and drag the barbie out of storage, or the christian story. Take your pick, but I have slightly more sympathy with the barbie gang.
I'm with Gordon re PYO fiction.
I don't avoid the 'c' word though; Christmas is what it is now, to each of us: no more, no less, and not what it may have been to anyone else previously. For me, it's a drag, except when it involves chldren young enough to light up because of it. Calling something by a different name does not change the referent, it just says something about the attitude of the speaker - especially when attention is drawn to it 
Remember those signs, still on the churches around my way: "The true millennium is the 2,000th birthday of Jesus Christ"? No it's not; the true millennium is a period of 2,000 years, not the date on which one starts or ends. Would they say "The true year is 1st January"? And that's leaving aside the cardinal / ordinal argument over whether it was 2000 or 2001 and whether there was a year zero. The point is that some groups, including but far from limited to the christian church, will nick anything and pretend they thought of it first.
It's not the commercialisation of christmas that's the problem for the christian church; it's the growing away from religion of the populace and hence the desanctification of christmas.
Sod original values. Sod values, even. Just live and, more importantly, let live.
(Malcy, I've recharged your PAYG rant card. Have one on me.)
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