Xmas rant | Imamother

Chayalle

Fri, Nov 30 2012, 2:15 pm

marina wrote:

There are people in my town who tell their children not to look at the lights. I think that's wrong and unkind. There's beauty in the world, children will undoubtably love the lights, even in secret, and there's no reason to make them feel bad about it.

I'm a child who was raised that way. I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was growing up, she had to be extra careful during the Holiday seasons (xmas and Easter). She was twice as likely to get beat up on the way home from school.....

We're lucky to grow up in a society where we can appreciate the beauty....but there's a long and troubled history with those lights.

CatLady

Fri, Nov 30 2012, 3:51 pm

Quote:

Don't get me started on the holiday music on the radio. If all they played was Carol of the Bells or that drummer boy one it wouldn't be so annoying, but the Mariah Carey stuff makes me want to punch someone.

I'll take your share of Mariah, add in the Mckenzie Brothers, John Lennon and Band Aid and leave you with that wretched drummer boy! No song that has ever been written bothers me as much as that one, and I think I've planted enough earworms around this site to prove that I'm not the most finicky listener. I'd rather listen to Gangnam Style on endless loop than endure another Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, TYVM.

Having said that, I love tinsel, lights, eggnog, proper British shortbread, the Secret Santa game at our Holiday Party (which has a separate kosher table because I am in charge of organizing the party!), Chinese food, movies, watching people careen around the pharmacy desperate for last-minute gifts, Boxing Day and all the other celebratory rituals.

grace413

Sat, Dec 01 2012, 11:25 am

Once upon a time I was a little Jewish girl, the only one in my public school class. The whole month of December was music, art projects, plays and who knows what else regarding Xmas. Every day I sat in music class not singing and in art class not doing projects and not participating in plays. It's not a pleasant experience for a child,

As they say gam zu ltova - I think the fact that being different (and not in a good way) from everybody was so smashed in my face made my first visit to EY so overwhelmingly exciting about being in a Jewish country that I made aliyah.

I can understand that people without bad associations can enjoy the lights and music but for me it just brings bad feelings.

CatLady

Sun, Dec 02 2012, 9:00 pm

Ah, yes, the ever-popular Xmas Sellout Concept Album! There are no nice words to describe my feelings where this is concerned. Exploding anger

However, this version of Hava Nagila by the wildly under-rated Me First and the Gimme Gimmes always makes me feel better. And play Air Drums, because I live alone.

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 02 2012, 9:38 pm

zaq wrote:

sequoia wrote:

I LIKE Neil Diamond.

So do I, even more so together with Barbra Streisand, but Neil and Babs singing Xmas carols turns my stomach. Ditto Mandy Patinkin singing Silent Night in Yiddish. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Written by you know who in the original. Or did someone already say that on the pages I skipped?

zaq

Mon, Dec 03 2012, 8:37 am

CatLady wrote:

Ah, yes, the ever-popular Xmas Sellout Concept Album! There are no nice words to describe my feelings where this is concerned. Exploding anger

However, this version of Hava Nagila by the wildly under-rated Me First and the Gimme Gimmes always makes me feel better. And play Air Drums, because I live alone.

That was a good laugh for a Monday morning--thanks!

PinkFridge

Mon, Dec 03 2012, 11:03 am

zaq wrote:

CatLady wrote:

Ah, yes, the ever-popular Xmas Sellout Concept Album! There are no nice words to describe my feelings where this is concerned. Exploding anger

However, this version of Hava Nagila by the wildly under-rated Me First and the Gimme Gimmes always makes me feel better. And play Air Drums, because I live alone.

That was a good laugh for a Monday morning--thanks!

Can't get the youtube but did listen to a clip I found. Actually, not awful.

PinkFridge

Mon, Dec 03 2012, 4:32 pm

marina wrote:

I think Santa Claus is a cute concept. No different than the tooth fairy or Eliyahu who visits every home on pesach or the malochim who manage to hang out with us every Friday night.

OK, them's fightin words. Whether or not Eliyahu comes (and yes, I'm sure you're the self-appointed table shaker) he was (is?) a historical, real figure.
As far as the malochim, I'm not scholarly enough to go to the sources and say real? Not real? But the lesson and purpose inherent in their propagation is life-long. Unlike the tooth fairy or Santa Claus one doesn't outgrow it.

spring13

Mon, Dec 03 2012, 5:41 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

marina wrote:

I think Santa Claus is a cute concept. No different than the tooth fairy or Eliyahu who visits every home on pesach or the malochim who manage to hang out with us every Friday night.

To be precise, St. Nicholas was a real person and according to legend a ba'al tzedaka who gave in secret. My problem with the Santa concept now is that it has lost most of the potential meaningfulness and become a rationalization for greed and consumerism. A very large proportion of Santa-ers have no regard for the real person and what he stood for, which I find hypocritical. But whatever. I just wish it was less in-your-face, and that the middos involved were more uniformly positive.

and yeah, part of the Santa thing does come from pagan sources as well.

PinkFridge

Mon, Dec 03 2012, 7:03 pm

spring13 wrote:

PinkFridge wrote:

marina wrote:

I think Santa Claus is a cute concept. No different than the tooth fairy or Eliyahu who visits every home on pesach or the malochim who manage to hang out with us every Friday night.

Yes, I know there was a historical figure, but lehavdil, the modern day Santa bears much less resemblance to that figure than the "seder visiting" Eliyahu does to the original. (And there are those of us who think the latter is one and the same.)

emunahdoj

Tue, Dec 04 2012, 3:34 am

saw50st8 Are you serious? Then why do you follow Torah if it is just a religion of faith?? Rabbi Kelemen wrote to the pope back and forth asking him to prove how Christianity is true and finally he told Rabbi Kelemen "well, you just hae to have blind faith..." Torah is NOT blind faith... Why would your kids follow Torah? I would not follow something if it were not true. Torah is true and can be proven. This is a fundamental concept of Judaism.

http://www.simpletoremember.co.....true/

grace413

Tue, Dec 04 2012, 4:10 am

"The proposition that God indeed spoke to the Jewish nation seems at least as probable as the alternatives"

The above is the last line of the Kemelman article mentioned above.

IMHO, if this proposition is equally probable to alternatives, it doesn't make an air-tight case for the truth of Divine Relevation.

It still it comes down to faith in the end.

And if we want to discuss this more we should probably start a new thread,....

ora_43

Tue, Dec 04 2012, 4:28 am

zaq wrote:

sequoia wrote:

I LIKE Neil Diamond.

So do I, even more so together with Barbra Streisand, but Neil and Babs singing Xmas carols turns my stomach. Ditto Mandy Patinkin singing Silent Night in Yiddish. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Neil Diamond rhymed "song she sang to me" with "song she brang to me." There can be no forgiveness.

But seriously, if nobody liked Neil Diamond it would have been a bad analogy.