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Rhu might be right-- in england, the christian church is the official religion.. but here in US, there is no official religion.. So its not the Advent season, any more than it is the Ramadam season..
our "seasons" are secular.. for most of us, "summer" is defined as the period from Memorial day (May 31st, to Labor day-- this is not the Summer as defined by the position of the sun--(which would move summer to apx. June 21 to Sept 21st)
hunting season depends on where you are, and what your are hunting. same too, with fishing season, and if any one is interested, some where, in some thread, are the open dates for frog hunting in CA!
christmas season in US is commercial season.. and to make it even less christian, its usually Holiday season.. after all, Ramadan requires a fast during daylight hours, and family feasts in the evening.. and sunday is the start of hanukkah and merchants want all of these people to come out and shop too, even if they don't give gifts, they are encouraged to purchase new table where, or candles.
all to often the Christ is taken out of christmas, and all that is left is the chi..happy Xmas and have fun shopping..
in Japan, christmas is also celebrated, usually with small gifts for children, and with a "christmas cake" --every one has christmas cake.. the cake is chocolate, cream filled rolled cake, decorated like a log-- a Buche do Noel-- i think is the french name.. like irish soda bread in US for st Pats.. everyone gets a chrismas cake.. and thats about it... in Japan, christmas is a bakers holiday!
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Carpal Tunnel
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What I hate is when the term Lent got taken over for the religious period, when it is properly used to refer to Springtime. Do you know that we limped along for a couple of hundred years with no word for Spring because the Christians stole the word for their own nefarious purposes? The song Sumer is i-cumen in, which is obviously a song about Spring to anyone who pays the slightest attention to the lyrics, dates from this period. 
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veteran
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I don't know, Helen, that the views of Rhu or any other Englishperson would depend on the fact that the C of E is the state religion in England. Fact is, the percentage of the population which attends C of E services or otherwise gets involved in the church (everyone is by law presumed a member of it) is even more miniscule than the corresponding percentages of US Christians and Jews of all stripes who are active church or synagogue members. Strange that the U.S., which is specifically forbidden to have any state religion or to allow the govt to support any religion, is a far more religious country than any European country, most of which have state religions; but that's not saying much, since the vast majority of USns have no religion or just some vague religious notions which impose no religious practices or duties.
[Rant]Be that as it may, what gets my goat is that Wall St. and Madison Ave. have done a pretty good job of taking over religious holidays, including Christmas and Hannukah (which is not a major festival among Jews), assigning new limits for the seasons, continually introducing new icons and symbols (like talking snowmen, red-nosed reindeer and such ilk), and in general making them over into whatever they think will assist in moving merchandise. If they would just carry on merchandising campaigns for The Holidays and work on more music like "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" and dream up as many secular cutesie-wutesie moose, mice, hippopotami, elves, dancing fir trees, or whatever, and leave our religious traditions alone. What with their continually assaulting our ears in the malls with carols, you now can't convince anyone that We Three Kings of Orey and Tar is not a Christmas carol, or that I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus is not an update of a 13th century sequence antiphon in the Phrygian mode, for Lauds on Christmas Day. Here endeth this year's Christmas rant.
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addict
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Red-nosed reindeer and such elk?
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Pooh-Bah
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>I hate it when people, merchandisers in chief, refer to the period from roughly Thanksgiving to New Years as the "Christmas Season".
The nun who was the headteacher of a primary school that my children once attended took the concept of the "real" Christmas season to it's logical conclusion. She said that there was no reason to put up a crib or any Christmas decorations before the end of term as this was not appropriate in Advent. She went into the school on 24th December and decorated it, so that it was decorated when the children came back on the 5th (ish) Jan, only to be taken down on the 6th Jan, when she arranged Christmas parties. A little strange in these days of mammon but it did make a point to the children.
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Pooh-Bah
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>We Three Kings of Orey and Tar
Last year I complained about the GAP advert "holidays are here" being inappropriately used here as we have our "holidays" at all times of year but mainly in the summer. Someone pointed out that it related to the "holidays are coming" Coca Cola advert with Father Christmas.
This year the advert is running on TV and I saw it for the first time (my children say that it has been on every year forever, so maybe I have been asleep). So I tried to decipher the song that is being sung. I asked my children what it said and they didn't know and I asked several others. Most people recognise the tune but don't know that it says "holidays are coming" which, as I said before, wouldn't really make sense here. I wonder if our version is different and the have "fuzzed out" the words or if it always sounds like that?
Gaudete
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I've been in Singapore just before Christmas a number of times in the last few years. The Singaporeans go crazy over Christmas - well, the trappings, anyway - and decorate the main streets with much more gusto and bravura than anything I've seen in Christian countries.
I asked a Singaporean friend why it was so popular. It appears that it's a hangover from the colonial days when Britain ran the island. It was the longest holiday that Singaporeans got at that time, so they celebrated that rather than the religious basis. Now, of course, the retailers have a field day ...
One of the biggest Christmas trees I've ever seen was set up across the road from the Raffles Hotel in 2000.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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...roughly Thanksgiving to New Years as the "Christmas Season"...
This year they "crossed a line in the snow" (even though we haven't had snow...yet). In many years past, merchandizers have waited until after Halloween to start thier *images of the holiday season... and about ten years ago it was hinted at but never blatantly *displayed before Thanksgiving... now we have a "major package delivery service" starting the *push in the middle of October... and it's the last time I'll use them.
This means we should be seeing the Easter bunny doing egg deliveries by... oh, say... the day after Valentine's day, no later.
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Thank y'all for your contributions! Bobyb, yes, what I meant by my rather inarticulate "special language" was exactly whaat you and others addressed. I want to learn more about Advent, the rituals and language associated with it. Meanwhile, from the wonderful "How Stuff Works" site (Max, want to add this to your valuable references link or is it off the mark?), here are the answers to questions on "How Christmas works" -- including "Why do I keep hearing the same songs over and over again?": http://www.howstuffworks.com/christmas.htm
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Hannukah (which is not a major festival among Jews)
Just another example of God's Sense of Humor; take a holiday for His people, albeit a minor one, but one that celebrates religious purity against foreign influences and schedule it up against what He must have known was to become the major celebration of Mammon, disguised as a celebration of the Birth of the Messiah that His people would not accept.
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