Just saw this very impressive documentary, produced by Morgan (Supersize Me) Spurlock. Doubt it's playing in cinemas near you, but if it it is, forget the other holiday releases & see it. It concerns the travels of one Reverend Billy (who physically reminds me a lot of our own Hyde) & his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir. Don't know if he's actually ordained, but his aim is true. They're performance artists/activists who stage protests in places like Disneyland & the Mall of America, to impress on people how perverse our Christmas celebrating values have become. It's an overinflated consumerist wet dream/nightmare that's not going to improve anytime soon. I'm not even a practicing Christian & it outrages me. Devout followers should be even more so. Their methods are very entertaining, even if the movie itself is more than a bit depressing. In one of it's more ironic bits, their bus is nearly destroyed by a semi that rear-ends them, it's driver likely in a rush to deliver his goods to the rabid consumers at their next destination (possibly a Wal-Mart)...
Have it on our saved list on Netflix.
Have it on our saved list on Netflix.
Great! Have you seen Rev. Billy? Doesn't he look like Hyde with longer, dyed blonde hair?
Jordan .
speaking of Morgan
The smart money says that he's holed up in a chateau in Geneva with Carmen Sandiego & Waldo.
God, is it okay to say that out loud now? Christmas is a big social problem.
Christians have been complaing about the big "social problem" of Christmas for years now. :-)
Jordan .
Weren't the Christians the first ones to bastardize the holiday? 
wasn't ever really a holiday until the Romans were trying to get Pagans to convert so they formed a Christian holiday at the same time as their holidays - so if anything, they bastardized the Pagan holiday :) . Up until that point no one celebrated the birth of Christ on any specific day. No one really cared. Most average-Joe Jews didn't pay attention to specific dates or days unless it was the Sabbath or a festival day -- and even then, it was announced throughout Israel through a communication system of blowing ram horns. When one horn blew in Jerusalem, the next "station" would hear it and blow his horn, and this continued throughout Israel announcing the start of Sabbath or another holiday. Since specific dates didn't matter no one really paid attention to the specific date of when someone was born or died.
Jordan .
wasn't ever really a holiday until the Romans were trying to get Pagans to convert so they formed a Christian holiday at the same time as their holidays - so if anything, they bastardized the Pagan holiday :)
Which explains the big honkin' tree. Nothing more "pagan" than a tree in the middle of your living room.
1996: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, dir. Jim Mallon
Logic Hat Online- logichat.org
Well, that's right. And the Pagans' liked the evergreen because they stayed alive-green- right through the winter. A symbol of life, I guess, around those short dark winter solstice days.
Just to be festive, I posted the History channel's special on Christmas on the YouTube thread.
Yes, Christians always had a problem with the partying, especially Protestants.
Having Christmas church services took a really long time and it was only to fill the pews.
I found the resurgence and commercialization of Christmas in the 1860s interesting, how it helped a primarily business oriented society form stronger bonds with their families using a Saint to promote shopping. But the lower classes have always been left out of this aspect of the holiday, and violence around Christmastime (probably in part because of it's trick or treat like traditions) is part of this tension.
But it's kind of the Church's fault for incorporating a religious holiday into a festival in the first place. They'd be totally unrelated things if they'd just started celebrating in the season Jesus was actually born in, instead of Mithra's birthday.