Yesterday, being the fourth Sunday before Christmas, saw the advent of … er … Advent, so here's a tasteful Parisian window display to wish my Christian friends a Happy New Liturgical Year (woohoo and Halleliuia) and in hope that the season brings you joy and reflection, thankfulness and praise in celebration of the birth of the man who taught us that compassion and love are not necessarily bad things.
For the rest of you, it is now officially open season on chocolate and time for the start of the annual sickening orgy of greed, gluttony, waste, binge-drinking, depravity, silly hats, bickering, disastrous dating decisions, wretched family gatherings filled with arguments and loathing, execrable TV, misguided lust, hideous hand-made sweaters, excruciating office parties, crappy unwanted gifts, unwise sexual couplings, hellish hangovers, appallingly bad music, tacky festive decorations, monumental hypocrisy, seething resentment and bitter remorse.
Enjoy!
26 comments:
Gosh, it all sounds like so much fun. Hey, is that Gandalf in the blue robe?
Now let me think!!!!!!!!!!
Shall I find some of the good old Christmas photo's?!!! maybe not... have a good day....and thanks for all my early Christmas books...
Petrea: Fortunately, most people's Christmas falls somewhere between the two.
Yes, that's Gandalf in the long nightie.
Mum: You know it's only the impending dread of the office Christmas party that brings out the "Dive" in me.
And what a perfect photo to represent your dual post—Santa and Jesus. Nativity and snow globes. Christmas and Dive. hee hee
That was the idea I was trying to put across, Robyn: the contrast between the sacred and the profane becomes somewhat more marked at this time of year.
The figures in the snow globes seem to be looking longingly to get out, but the camel is giving them the evil eye.
That camel is scary, but not as scary as the size of baby Jesus compared to Mary.
Yowch!
I can just hear her now …
"Myrrh? …
MYRRH?
I asked for gold, frankincense and an epidural, you plonkers!"
Hahahahaha. Good words. You know this season well. Fortunately, we're all so broke over here this year, we can barely afford anything in the Skymall catalog to lavish on our relatives! :D
True, Shan. Maybe this year we can get to the meaning and out of the frenzy for once, if only because meaning is what we can afford this year.
You folks on the other side of the pond are lucky. Our Holiday season officially began on Thanksgiving Thursday. The day after, Black Friday, started the feeding, shopping frenzy. At least I play Steely Dan in my mind all day.
Hee hee, Shan! There are some awfully tempting things on the SkyMall website this Christmas.
Or do I mean temptingly awful?
Petrea: it would be much easier to contemplate the true meaning of Christmas if I could only get out of attending our stupid office party.
Brr …
Neetzy: Over here, Harrods and the other big stores start putting up their Christmas displays in August (yes, AUGUST)!
Thank you for returning me to sanity with some delicious Dan.
August? Really?
Dive, I hesitate to say this, but I believe we've found at least one situation where the Brits--or I should say, "Harrods and the other big stores"--are, shall we say, a tad more--
ooh, I hesitate. I don't want to say "crass." Let's use
--inelegant, than the Americans.
I'm so glad you're at a distance. I know you'll shoot me down.
Lupine Lady: Yes, the supermarkets and big stores are obscene here. Hey ho.
As for the office party; there is no escape (AUGH).
And actually I quite like hideous Christmas sweaters, especially when it's frosty like today.
Petrea: Yes, August! And I totally agree, especially where Harrods is concerned. It is crasser than the worst excesses of AirMall.
Here's an earlier Harrod's crapfest post. Before looking at it you may want to have a sick bag handy:
http://smallglassplanet.blogspot.com
/2007/01/tacky-kitsch-trash.html
Dive blogging about Christmas goodness me, well let's see the adjectives; crappy, hideous, appalling,greedy, gluttenous, depraved, disastrous, tacky, wretched, .......oh ok, Dive's still Dive. I knew Katie had changed you a lot, but your attitude to Christmas? Well that would take some doing. Are you spending the festivities together?
Lynn: You know me and adjectives. And indeed me and Christmas.
Altogether now: "Bah! Humbug!"
Hee hee hee.
I found Harrod's overwhelming when I was there in...let me see, it would have been August of 1999. I don't remember Christmas decorations but I was staggered by the magnitude of it all. It's fine for some (and the food section was amazing), but I prefer smaller shops.
And Mr. Fayed must be allowed his grief but that statue's a bit much.
:::hiding the sweater I knit especially for Dive:::
My kids are too old to "trick or treat", but were okay with splurging on discounted candies on November 1st. I suggested celebrating Christmas on December 26th but that didn't go over too well. (I tried).
I do hate December. I shall rant about it soon enough. Of your list it's not all so bad. Office parties have cake and free booze. And misguided lust, well...
Petrea: Harrods only exists for the tourists and for dumb yokels in villages even smaller than mine who have never seen a shop. They take a day out in London and miss all the important and interesting stuff just so they can go and look round the world's tackiest department store. I'll never understand it.
Shazza: Awww! I DO like Christmas sweaters. Really! Hee hee.
Neetzy: You should tell them horror stories about my Christmas-free house so they realise how lucky they are.
Vanda: Talking of rants, here's one of my old posts about the office Christmas party.
I think it explains a lot.
http://smallglassplanet.blogspot.com
/2007/12/office-christmas-party.html
Nothing like the old Yuletide spirit ;)
The stuff in this window looks like something you'd see in the window of a thrift store.
Ms.M: Bizarrely, we found this in the pretty little row of garden shops on Ile de Cité, just around the corner from Notre Dame; about as far from a thrift store as possible on the social scale and yet just as tacky.
Nice party write up. Fortunately for me, at my past place of employment we were an mix of creative types and computer geeks. There were the marketing and bizdev types too, but we just ignored them.
Vanda: I'm just an old Scrooge at heart.
Our house is decorated, but my heart was not in it this year. I think I pulled it off okay, though.
Liv always asks the best questions. One of her first questions about Christmas was: How come everyone always talks about how poor Jesus was when those kings brought him all those expensive presents? Couldn't they sell some of that stuff to get a better hotel room?
Maria: Liv is so darned smart! That is an excellent question.
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