I'm on the "bah humbug" side of Christmas, honestly. I go along with it because most my family & friends, but honestly, I find it exhausting and obnoxious.

You'd love the Christmas Revels album. "The boars head in hand bear I, bedecked with sage and rosemary!"

The book goes into a lot of class warfare and how Christmas was traditionally a time when peasants would remind land holders of their tenuous hold on power.

Water is actually not wet; It makes other materials/objects wet. Wetness is the state of a non-liquid when a liquid adheres to, and/or permeates its substance while maintaining chemically distinct structures. So if we say something is wet we mean the liquid is sticking to the object.

 

Every time I take a drink from a bottle, it keeps pouring back.

Must be spring water.

Society is a construct built be the socialization of humans as a way to coexist. It is therefore a social construct. And I’m super bored with the “it’s a social construct” as if it settles the debate. Yes everything we do that is related to human civilization/socialization is related to “society” whether it’s tradition, culture, religion, communication, trade, even science.

All of it has been “constructed” as a way to progress us as a species past just animals roaming the savannah fucking, fighting, eating, and dying. So pointing out that something is a “social construct” as it relates to human socialization in the modern world is like pointing out that liquid water is wet or the sky is blue. So what? Partying is a social construct, graduation is a social construct, a promotion is a social construct, a marriage (in the romantic, not the religious sense) is a social construct.

Are you saying that by the very nature of something being a social construct, it is inherently bad? If so, that means that even the social constructs you enjoy must be destroyed and done away with. Or are you simply saying that a social construct is something that can be changed/removed? This argument would make a lot more sense, but that’s not how you presented it. And if you feel that a “social construct” is something that can be changed/removed and in this case you feel it should be, then present your argument on why that should be the case.

Thanks for the recommendation of literature. I love that kind of stuff as I'm a bit of an anthropology/history buff.

In my house we wish each other happy Saturnalia.

So, I guess the answer would be yes? Society creates (and, thus, continually recreates) itself.

Edit: Or, maybe "reproduces" is a better way to phrase it than "recreates?"

It just got me thinking of Mark Fischer, is all.

https://youtu.be/JX-HfNIN-pc?t=171

2:51
while we used to recreate the
2:54
past in order to understand it or relive
2:57
it
2:57
today we recreate the past unconsciously
3:01
today's nostalgia is purely formal
3:04
today's nostalgia takes up the signs and
3:07
forms of yesterday's culture not in
3:10
tribute or as a critique but in the same
3:13
way that workers reproduce their own
3:16
exploitation every day in order to
3:18
survive we repeat the past simply
3:22
because these are the only forms that
3:24
seem remotely viable to consider

If society gives birth to itself, mimicking itself, then, society would be inherently conservative, right?

There's a really interesting book which delves into the "roots" of Christmas called The Battle for Christmas by Nissenbaum. It doesn't focus on the ancient or Medieval origins of Christmas, but the evolution of Christmas as a thing that was wholly torn apart during the rise of Puritanism. Ancient customs associated with harvest and winter larders were wiped away by a Christian ethic of temperance. Basically, they wanted drudgery without punctuation and saw winter celebrations as drunken revelry... which it was, but they didn't see the need for it.

If you want to kind of get an inkling of those older traditions, you can kind of hear it in albums like The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice.

I say, kind of hear, because a lot of those traditions were wiped away and we have to reassemble them. It's not exactly the same, but it's kind of like Pacific Islanders having to reassemble their language and traditions after the colonial period tried to scour it away.

Anyway, the book explains how the Christmas we know today... the Victorian, Dickensian Christmas was, oddly enough, a product of Dickens coming to America and his readings of Washington Irving (who also kind of invented Halloween). The traditions in a Christmas Carol aren't invested in Christian imagery. They are invested in a type of pagan tradition that Dickens assembled or invented.

So, in the end, the hard to define element of Christmas might actually owe a lot to the murky nature of the traditions themselves.

Edit: Also, Christ's birthday was one of the few events which didn't seem to have an associated date which lined up with the Jewish calendar and Holidays so it was easy to assign to the Solstice celebrations.

I think what is meant is that society forms through social interaction between people.

This shared interaction creates norms/rules/etc this becomes more solidified as time and interactions continue. Creating roughly what we would call a culture or society.

> Lack of inquiry and precision in terminology

How... unphilosophical.

I dread having to shop for gifts.

I am also an atheist, here is the nativity scene my father in law made in the early 70s he passed it on to us as it is too difficult for him to set up now.

Picture

Well I don't mean to hate on it and it's great if people get joy out of it, just sharing my view

Well I don't mean to hate on it and it's great if people get joy out of it, just sharing my view

God I wish this could be my family. The gift giving... is so needless. I'm a grown ass man and most things I do want I buy for myself, or are too expensive.

What does that look like functionally? Like do you still get invited to parties and stuff? Do you go?

Honestly, I think he just means 'phenomenon' in the sense that the Beatles were a phenomenon (i.e. a cultural phenomenon) but instead of giving an example of what he meant he just gives his own (questionable) analysis of what it is for something to be a cultural phenomenon.

I'm also confused why he'd say something isn't real just because it's a cultural phenomenon or even just because its a set of things held together by their cultural meaning. It would also make no sense to say it isn't real if what he meant is that it's a social construct but I digress.

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With respect to attributing the modern conceptualisation of Santa to Coca Cola: Coca Cola based their advertising on the characterisation of Santa from ‘Account of a visit from St Nicholas’ aka ‘Twas the night before Christmas’ published in 1822 purportedly by Clement Clarke Moore https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/marketing/christmas/coca-cola-and-father-christmas--the-sundblom-santa-story With respect to the red coat, in 1881 the political cartoonist Thomas Nast used the poem as inspiration for his depiction of Santa which features a red coat and even before that a stained glass portrait of St Nicholas from 1340-50 showed him wearing a red coat https://www.thecollector.com/thomas-nast-illustrator-creator-of-santa-claus/ . Coca cola’s Santa-themed artwork was started in 1931.

One of the things that I enjoy about Christmas is that this is mythology in practice. The concept may have evolved from real people (different ones depending upon the culture) but I find it impressive that a collection of communities come together to perpetuate a mythological explanation for their actions. They surrender the acknowledgment of their actions (giving children presents) in favour of a socially protected belief - one which can lead to condemnation if you fail to accord by the largely unspoken rule that parents are the ones who should tell their children when they feel it is the right time. However, there is no universally accepted age that children should be ‘let in’ on this adult collusion.

When I was young I memorised the poem ‘a visit from St Nick’ and there are some features that epitomise the modern conceptualisation of Santa as a positive being who brings joy into our lives. “His eyes - how they twinkled, his dimples, how merry…… His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow……. He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.” This jolly, friendly and harmless characterisation of Santa is likely necessary given his association with children.

I find it interesting that this mythological conceptualisation is not about self-generated happiness where you are an active participant in creating your joy (beyond inviting Santa to your home using what could be termed ‘rites’ such as leaving out food/drink for Santa etc) but primarily it is an external agent entering one’s life (symbolically entering into a private, safe space - your home) to provide you with happiness (or at least capitalist symbols of it via gifts). There is also often some risk of punishment/exclusion from this beneficent gift-giving if children have behaved badly.

The symbolic significance of many actions at Christmas is also featured in the poem: “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care” - the ‘with care’ shows that the action itself is not the most significant part, the reverence with which it is enacted is - to me this is emblematic of placing totems upon an altar and I have to say that I decorate my home with that same care. Each decoration has its place and after the holiday they will all be packed up carefully to preserve them for the next year.

I also find that there is a sense that this is a time when people actively seek out the construction of good memories (via gatherings, cooking ‘traditional’ foods). Interestingly, despite growing up with the belief that such memories are generated as a result of a magical being, people do take responsibility for creating their own positive Christmas - possibly as a result of recognising the effort that their parents had to go to so that they, as children, could enjoy Christmas.

People engage in reciprocal social behaviours (exchanging gifts/cards, wishing each other well for the season) which may act as a repeated (year after year) reinforcement of social bonds. Often I have contact with people at Christmas that I don’t see/hear from at any other point in the year and information regarding their lives is shared through cards/newsletters. Therefore, Christmas may act to help enable the formation, maintenance and potential revitalisation of friendships.

I would love to say that people are nicer, or more generous, at Christmas as that has always been my perception but I cannot find any statistics on that so perhaps I simply look at the world through an altered viewpoint at Christmas as a result of my own choices to immerse myself in Christmas themed uplifting activities and entertainment media - you could say that I wear ‘Christmas tinted glasses’ for a month each year.

The smells for sure, but I’m sure we all have that ONE song that takes us back to the mystery, fragility and peacefulness of Christmas that we felt when we were 6. For me it’s John Denver and the Muppet’s A Baby Just Like You. That flute hook at the beginning still breaks my heart. It’s hard to describe.

Edit: word

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Ah fair enough haha

You're not weird for feeling this way, at least your comment didn't get assaulted by the lovers of Christmas.

I think they mean that society is a human construct and have confused the meaning of social construct. Lack of inquiry and precision in terminology is rather abundant here in this thread.

Not particularly? I mean, I was raised Christian so maybe it's just strong nostalgia, it's hard to say. But man I love my nativity scenes lol I'm trying to convince my husband to let me get the huge plastic light up figures for the lawn lol

I used to try too hard to have that "special" Christmas but was always disappointed and it did not live up to my expectations. The people I wanted to share in my special Christmas had their own agendas and the commercialism became intolerant.

Nowadays I have no expectations and the family made the wise decision long ago to stop with the gift giving except for the kids so no pressures either. A much, much better holiday now.