So here it is; Merry Christmas!

[Mark]

Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall? Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall?

[GridGirl]

Mark, you need a Black Country accents and need to finish it off with It'ssss Chhhhrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiissstttmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssss! :D

I have got all my present's and have wrapped the majority of them. The other half had wrapped all of my presents last week and put them in our front room to annoy me because I hate not knowing what they are. We cooked some fresh bread in the slow cooker on Saturday to eat for breakfast on Sunday.. He then spent Saturday night eating it (it was pretty good I do have to say) and then proceeding to use my largest present as a plate stand!!! Personally, I don't think its a coffee table as we only bought one in July but he seems to think thats what it is. :rolleyes: :p

[Retro Formula 1]

Got the Kinnect for a family present delivered yesterday. Have Tickets for Arsenal for the oldest, iPod nano for the middle and a pushbike for the youngest. Jewllery for the missus and booze for friends.

I've never been this organised but thats because we're off to the parents in Ireland on the 23rd.

[Mark]

Lets hope they don't read this forum!

[Retro Formula 1]

Lets hope they don't read this forum!


No chance :laugh:

[gadjo_dilo]

Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall? Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall?

Unfortunately snow is already falling and all I hope for is a dry Christmas.

[schmenke]

Good Lord skc, you spoil your family! :laugh: You're looking me look bad :erm: :p :

Pressies are done at the schmenke-shack. After dropping many hints, Santa got the wife a cast-iron sauce pan (specifically for a risotto :mark: ), plus a pair of slippers to replace the tatters that she currently hobbles around in.
Like skc, the eldest got an iPod nano, and the youngest a push-scooter, although it isn't equipped with snow tires, so she'll likely have to wait 'til the spring to get any significant use out of it.

A dozen or so family and friends will descend upon the shack on Friday the 24th to inhale a turkey (or two), plus a generous amount of libation.

Other than that, there are no plans for anything exotic. The family will stay local, perhaps a trip or two to the mountains to enjoy(?) chasing the kids careening down an icy slope.
http://www.skinakiska.com/conditions/mountain-cam.aspx

Merry Christmas everyone, and please let’s not allow the bright lights and hype to cloud the real spirit of this time of year!

[race aficionado]

Yes, Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday to all.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Really!!!

:s mokin:

[Easy Drifter]

Bah Humbug!
It started snowing here last Fri. and has not stopped. We only have 3 feet where I am.
Just west of here it is up to 6 to 7 feet. Ontario's largest ski resort was shut on Tues. because of too much snow. That is about 10 miles away by crow.
Highway 26 was closed from Sunday until today. That is a major highway.
Remember we are in the snow belt and supposedly used to this!
The total amount is not unusual for late Jan. but not mid Dec. With Georgian Bay wide open and still well above freezing it will only get worse.
One problem is where do you put it? When your driveway sides are piled 8 to 10 feet high what do you do?
Merry Christmas. :D

[Dave B]

Fake Christmas dinner tomorrow for my family before packing up the car with blankets, shovels, flasks of tea, emergency supplies and - if there's room - some presents, and heading ooop north on xmas eve to the in-laws.

The roads are going to be such fun :eek:

[GridGirl]

We have only an inch of snow in Leeds. I already figure that I am going to drive 120 miles to work on Monday morning to find the majority of people have called in with a snow day and are all outside having fun.

[steveaki13]

Merry Christmas One and All.

[Donney]

Merry Christmas, Happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!!!!!!!!

[Bolton Midnight]

Presents, cards, food, kids - woman's work

Snow is fine up North unless you can't drive for toffee then best you stay where you are.

Xbox + Kinteic for 7 year old
Cuddly Fifi for 3 year old
Nowt for missus
Autocourse, comp licence, replacement Garmin Quest for me from me; might get myself a new lid too

[GridGirl]

Christmas officially starts for me tomorrow at 12pm when or works Christmas party kicks off. :D Good times.

[ArrowsFA1]

Happy Christmas everyone and have a great New Year :) :beer:

[tannat]

Donning a Santa suit in three hours for 'Cookies and milk with Santa' at the children's hospital where I work...

Looking forward to Friday when I am off and fun with the kiddies, vino and family.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

[Alexamateo]

Donning a Santa suit in three hours for 'Cookies and milk with Santa' at the children's hospital where I work...

Looking forward to Friday when I am off and fun with the kiddies, vino and family.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

Good for you tannat :) :up: Do you work for St. Jude's or LeBonheur? St. Jude's is of course world renown, and I have nothing but utmost respect for everyone at LeBonheur. My little girl had heart surgery at LeBonheur when she was but 4 days old. Everyone who works there is just the best!

[GridGirl]

Donning a Santa suit in three hours for 'Cookies and milk with Santa' at the children's hospital where I work...

Looking forward to Friday when I am off and fun with the kiddies, vino and family.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

My nieces went to see Santa last Saturday. All was fine and well until Santa started to talk about how he took his grand daughter to see Santa the previous weekend. :rolleyes: Good luck with playing Santa and be on your guard with with what you tell the kiddies. :)

[Mark in Oshawa]

Well, Mom and Dad are looked after, some nice apparel for mom, tickets to the Grand Slam of Curling for Dad, jewellery making gear for the wife, books and music gift certificates for my teenager daughter in Nova Scotia.

Christmas will be spent up in the country with my mother in law with the trailer camp (all shut down and tucked up for winter) where there isn't that much snow (Drifter, move east my man...).

The Brother in Law from Schmenke's neck of the woods (Red Deer Alberta) is coming down and we haven't seen him for 4 years so it will be a good time..

I plan on eating lots of turkey, Christmas day and Boxing day at my folks back here in the Shwa....

Merry Christmas to all of you in snowy England, Ireland, Wales And Scotland; Merry Christmas too all my Finnish friends (Eki, stay out of the egg nog!); Gadjo in Romania, Rudy in Belarus and Donkey in Germany, all my Aussie friends; My fellow Canadians and all the Yanks who I have grown to fight with, and for over the years.....

May you all enjoy your holiday festivities.

[tannat]

My nieces went to see Santa last Saturday. All was fine and well until Santa started to talk about how he took his grand daughter to see Santa the previous weekend. :rolleyes: Good luck with playing Santa and be on your guard with with what you tell the kiddies. :)


Aye-good advice GG :up:

[tannat]

Good for you tannat :) :up: Do you work for St. Jude's or LeBonheur? St. Jude's is of course world renown, and I have nothing but utmost respect for everyone at LeBonheur. My little girl had heart surgery at LeBonheur when she was but 4 days old. Everyone who works there is just the best!


Jude, but we do a LOT of stuff with Le Bonheur-its a super place.

Continued good health to your daughter and the rest of your family, Alexamateo :up:

[Bolton Midnight]

Always thought it would be odd celebrating Christmas in sunshine like Oz for example.

[Dave B]

Happy Christmas Eve Eve, everybody. And with that I'm disappearing for a while to enjoy the festivities. Have a great Chrimbo and New Year, everybodypeeps :wave: :s anta:

[pino]

Merry Christmas Everyone :D

[gadjo_dilo]

I can't understand a thing: most of you don't believe in God but make so much fuss about Christmas.....

Why? What do you celebrate?

[gadjo_dilo]

Appreciation of and generosity toward family, friends and those less fortunate.



Wow! It means that we take these values into account only one time per year....Interesting....

[schmenke]

Please let's not hijack this thread :)

[Mark]

Christmas is all about time spent with your family. For many, including myself, it's not a religious celebration.

[Tazio]

Happy Hanukkah ;)

[Bob Riebe]

A Happy Hanukkah and a most Blessed Christmas to all.

[Eki]

Merry Kwanzaa to all.

[Tom206wrc]

Joyeux Noël :D

Merry Christmas to all Motorsportforumers ;)

[Rudy Tamasz]

It's about time to start wishing Merry Christmas to Eastern Christians who celebrate it on January 7th! :)

[Eki]

It's about time to start wishing Merry Christmas to Eastern Christians who celebrate it on January 7th! :)
I thought they didn't have Christmas and Santa, just some sort of Frosty the Snowman who brings them presents on New Year.

[Rudy Tamasz]

I thought they didn't have Christmas and Santa, just some sort of Frosty the Snowman who brings them presents on New Year.

We do not have a Santa, indeed. We have a Frosty Granddad, but his functions are very similar to those of Santa. E.g. in hour family Junior has already struck a deal with the old magician to get from him a Cars racetrack with the Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson and the rest of the gang.

Also, in the Communist years Christmas was pushed into the shadow as a religious holiday and New Year assumed some of its features. In the recent years Christmas has made it back to the public life, though.

In Belarus we have denominations of both Western and Eastern Christianity and we duly celebrate on both occasions. :)

[Alexamateo]

It's about time to start wishing Merry Christmas to Eastern Christians who celebrate it on January 7th! :)

And if your wife is from Mexico, you have Three Kings Day on January 6, and another round of gifts for the kids. :D Although this time its mostly just candy and small gifts. We'll also have some people over that night and read the story of the three kings from the Bible, and take down the nativity scene from Christmas. We'll also have a "king" cake, which has a figurine of Baby Jesus baked into it, and if you get that piece, you have to host a party on Feb 2, or something like that. :)

[gadjo_dilo]

We do not have a Santa, indeed. We have a Frosty Granddad, but his functions are very similar to those of Santa. E.g. in hour family Junior has already struck a deal with the old magician to get from him a Cars racetrack with the Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson and the rest of the gang.

Also, in the Communist years Christmas was pushed into the shadow as a religious holiday and New Year assumed some of its features. In the recent years Christmas has made it back to the public life, though.

In Belarus we have denominations of both Western and Eastern Christianity and we duly celebrate on both occasions. :)

That's weird. In our communist "era" Christmas wasn't an official holiday but we all celebrated it ( even communist leaders did it but in silence ). We had to go to work on that day but nobody worked, we brought food and drinks and I'm still nostalgic about those mad parties. Kids were singing carols even in the bus or were knocking on your door- a custom that is lost today. There were always members of family or neighbours ready to give you a helping hand and play the role of Santa. The Christmas tree was always a real fir not the plastic surrogates...Even St. Nicholas, the forerunner of Santa Clause was coming. The authorities made big fuss about the Frosty who comes on new year eve but in real life it was Santa the one who was coming on Christmas day.
In fact it's a paradox: Officially communists denied Christmas and religion but in particular we celebrated at hard an event associated with the birth of Jesus. These days the celebration is official but all we do is singing the annoying Jingle bells and run like mads after food and presents.
I saw a TV coverage on Christmas and I was shocked that a lot of people don't know the significance of the day. They say it's the time of the year when we sacrifice the pig and celebrate by eating the "porkies" .

[Eki]

I saw a TV coverage on Christmas and I was shocked that a lot of people don't know the significance of the day. They say it's the time of the year when we sacrifice the pig and celebrate by eating the "porkies" .
Actually they are sort of right. Christmas was just that for pagans before Christianity.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/freyr_-_adam_of_bremen


The autumn blót was performed in the middle of October, the great Midwinter blót, or Yule, at the winter solstice. The dark winter was a harsh time for the people of Scandinavia, and special means had to be undertaken to help nature pass the critical phase. Freyr was the most important god at the Midwinter and autumn blóts, and Christmas ham (the pig was for Freyr) is still the main Christmas course in Scandinavia. The Summer blót was undertaken in April and the vernal equinox and it was given to Odin. Then, they drank for victory in war and this blót was the ...

[gadjo_dilo]

Actually they are sort of right. Christmas was just that for pagans before Christianity.


Ha, ha! In fact they asked some old ladies and the next question was if they attend church services on regular basis and they all pretended they do. :laugh:

We have a lot of wonderful and picturesque christmas-new year rites that are related to pagan origins. Like going with goat, dancing with bears, going with the star, going with the plough, going with "sorcova ", etc.
I must underline that the sacrifice of the pig has nothing mystical in it. I used the word "sacrifice" because I found barbarian and trivial this habit, in reality they say " to cut the pig ". As trivial as the habit to call the Christmas bonus " bonus for pork".

P.S. To be honest I don't think there was a Christmas before......Christianity :laugh:

I think that even those who don't have a religious feeling must admit that the values promoted by this holiday are associated with the values of Christianity.
Probably the pagans had their own celebrations ( like winter/summer solstice, the new year, etc. ) but I doubt those made them feel better, more generous, more...human ).

[Bob Riebe]

Actually they are sort of right. Christmas was just that for pagans before Christianity.


Hmm, Christmas- Christ's Mass- was celebrated before the Christ came.

HA! No wonder the Wise Men made that long journey to worship him when the real deal arrived.

I guess that also explains why the European barbarians so quickly joined the Christian churches.

[Eki]

Hmm, Christmas- Christ's Mass- was celebrated before the Christ came.

HA! No wonder the Wise Men made that long journey to worship him when the real deal arrived.

I guess that also explains why the European barbarians so quickly joined the Christian churches.

Actually, nobody even knows what year Jesus was born, let alone the date. The best estimate is that he was born 7 years before Christ. They put the date of Christmas to where it is now, the time of pagan winter solstice festivals, to lure the pagans in.

[Bob Riebe]

Actually, nobody even knows what year Jesus was born, let alone the date. The best estimate is that he was born 7 years before Christ. They put the date of Christmas to where it is now, the time of pagan winter solstice festivals, to lure the pagans in.
Some Christian scholars have calculated on the sparse info available, what we celebrate as his birth is probably close to the time of his conception.

Now the people in southern Argentina and Chile, would not mind if it was celebrated close to the time of his real birth, especially in Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales The Santas would not have to dress up in summer heat but I like it the way it is.