I totally agree. I would also cite Halloween and Easter as equally annoying. Even worse, some profiteering organisations are even trying to put a religious angle on some of these festivals. We are so like-minded, I am tempted to suggest we get together in the 3rd week of December, have a few beers and exchange token gifts for no reason whatsoever. Maybe not, but I like your style!!!
thanks for remembering..im sitting here in my neck collar as i write my drivel! i had an anterior cervical discectomy and prosthetic disc fitted at C5/6 (replacing the intervertebral disc). im having physio every week and doing exercises 4 times a day. still taking painkillers and having trouble sleeping but the mobility in my arms is improving, although my left arm got worse after the operation. i had a frozen right shoulder which has steadily improved. ive got a nice scar across my throat though and my larynyx is about an inch to the right (makes swallowing quite difficult). this is something i think i'll have to live with. i cant swallow pretty much anything unless i chew it to oblivion and have a glass of water handy... All in all though mate, its 10000000x better. a long road to recovery, but today i was cleaning the house, just starting to do normal stuff..doesnt sound like much, but when you havent been able to hardly anything for 9 months and being in constant agony anythings an improvement...i simply couldnt thave lived the rest of my life like that...one more year maybe, tops. I should be having a phased return to working in november (got occupational health meetings, ESA blah blah). I dont want to return to my job as such, but it will do me good to start and make a new routine for myself, rebuild my life, get a new woman (after mine left me..ps thanks for visiting me in hospital...i must have missed you) and get on with my life x
Glad you getting progress, but sounds fookin painful, uncomfortable, and a complete life changer. you got a target date for getting back biking, or is that out of the question? wimmin, can't live with them, can't get away with burying them under the patio (modern decomposition sniffers are getting pretty sophisticated). good luck with the occupational health malarkey, they can usually induce more stress than they often pretend to alleviate. pete
Christmas, hmmm. Tricky one. I used to really like it a lot. I'd buy the wife expensive presents, organise really great food and drink and get into the whole thing (no kids, so not very family). Also liked endless parties in the lead up, though I'm not normally a particularly party person. Now, the fun has left the marriage, the presents are no longer bought. The meals have got sadder, the exercise increasingly pointless. Still holding out hope of a return to earlier years (albeit with someone I have yet to meet). it's a cliché, but you are always loneliest in a crowd, always saddest surrounded by people having fun. Still, let's not get carried away here: I still organise plenty of fun for myself - I make it my business to do so. So I feel a bit neutral about Crimbo. If you don't pay it much attention (by avoiding towns, mainly) it comes and goes pretty quickly. I did used to send quite a lot of cards, but the stream coming back my way has thinned to a trickle - seems no one can be bothered any more, so I'm following suit. Maybe I'll go all retro again and send out a heap again this year. But I still do a tree - a massively kitsch affair weighed down with a massive quantity of baubles that have no colour code. It's like any of these things - if you don't make it happen, it doesn't. I remember spending a totally crap 20th birthday on a park bench in Perpignan with two mates who I assumed would make sure I had a great time. They didn't, so I just sat about feeling sorry for myself and feeling that I deserved better. What a tosser! Now I make damned sure I enjoy those days. If no one else makes it fun for me, I take charge.
glidd i hear you girlfriend. i must admit, i hadnt put the christmas tree up whenever ive been single...it seems a bit ridiculous...whilst with my ex, she insisted even if we were going abroad..when she left, i gave her all of the decorations. we had gathered a large box of them over the years, some really nice ones and lots of sentimental ones. i think if i got that tree and decorated it with those old ghosts id bloody top myself. inside the box at the top was a silly little bear in a santa hat that we used to put on top of the tree, sometimes one of us would write a note (from the bear) to the other one, put the note back in the box until next year before putting the box in the loft. if i opened that box now it would probably crush me. christmasses past...reason 1028 why i hate christmas. If anyone is at a loose end either christmas or new year perhaps we could organise something? just a thought, doesnt have to be a big deal.. i wish i had a gas oven instead of this electric thing. i feel like sticking my head in the fkr after starting this thread.
WTF ! Funky you tosser, Why 'o' why are you talking about fuckin' Xmas so fuckin' early , you're just as bad as the rest of the tossers :wink:
My dad died on Christmas day, so it was a sombre time for a while. But that hiatus made me realise I quite like Christmas. I thought I hated xmas too, but I missed the turkey and all the trimmings, the fussing around getting things ready, the early drinking that loosens tongues. It helps of course that I've got a family with no issues, but I reckon a lot more people who think they hate xmas would miss it more than they would expect to. Only two kids in our family, and they're getting to late teens now, so we spend maybe a tenner on each present for each other; it's ridiculous to spend thousands in order to say what you can easily utter with your mouth for free. The company's far more important than some trinket.
Yes I have hated the C word with a passion since I don't know how long. 2 weeks of chaos for 2 days off I call it. Being self employed means hardly any work for about a fortnight tho. Everone running round like headless chickens, can't drive anywhere, can't park when you get there. Stressed people everywhere trying to get something for somebody. I used to make a bit of an effort up to 20 years ago going round to visit, dropping of their C card and that was nice as I hadn't seen some of them since the previous C, but that faded out as a few times it turned into a gossip fest with mates putting down mates. Over the last few years I try and do less and less. I'm down to about 3 family+3 friends cards now and they get posted. My girlfriend isn't a big fan either but she does like putting some decs and lights up and does her best to cheer me up as she knows i struggle with this time of year, which is nice.
I can take it or leave it personally, I just wish I had the inclination to write such an amusing verbal onslaught as funky has done at this early hour this has been some of the funniest and also the most depressing Christmas shit I've read in ages , in the main par for the course at Christmas time I guess HOWEVER, lets not get ahead of ourselves just yet peeps, we've got the joy of joys Halloween coming up, the time of year where my door gets inundated with either little children with parents coming round for some sweeties while I'm trying to just relax after work or some cheeky little pikey twats who clearly just want some money for dope saying they'll egg my windows, at which point I usually tell them ill egg their fucking face....... Can't wait for that one
A meet up of like minded is a good idea. I used to do a bacon butty meet just after Christmas if you want to ride down this way I know you cant funky for now. Any other ideas?
Used to like it but then kids grew up and scattered themselves round the world. Xmas morning now consists of endless skype calls to relatives who can't wait to get back to the pool, then the rest of the day watching endless re-runs on tv. Did have a great xmas about 4 years ago a group of us single guys just jumped on our bikes and did an improptu Iron Butt ride from Scotland to Plymouth mostly motorways due to petrol situation, but what a hoot it surprised us just how many people treat Xmas day as just any other day. Now those same people seem to have got hooked into the commercialism have to see if I can spark some life back into them.
Christmas when you sad and alone is utterly bollox, but I really enjoy Christmas now I'm with my Sarah. I do dislike the commersialism side of things as other people have noted. For me Christmas starts on the 11th December, two weeks before, not the end of f-ing septemeber. Councils should have an embargo on decorations before that date
l use christmas day to get out on the bike for a few hours its great deserted roads same/when there is a big football match on then me and the mrs have a we hate xmas party at ours and invite like minded people last years was who has the worst bermuda shorts/shirt theme great
We're pagans, so Christmas is simply the party we join in with a few days after we start our own proper 'festivities' .......
Early?? wtf are u going on about?? The build started during the Olympics FFS...Mind you, you kiwis are too busy slipping it up sheep to notice x
give it large with your Saturnalia cards mate. simply swapping one load of mumbo jumbo pie in the sky cobblers for another load...no offence old chum :wink: I cant remember the last time i sent a chrstmas card..probably about the same time i received one funnily enough...at least mine used to be sent sincerely...now thats something thats in really short supply at christmas...sincerity.
None taken :smile: - It's more a lifestyle of appreciating our surroundings than wasting any time showing any kind of 'devotion through fear' to something that doesn't exist. I've always said, if I'm right, then they've all wasted their time; if they're right, hey, I'll discuss it with their boss when I meet them! But they can't all be right, so that'll be a very very long 'naughty boys' queue ..... :biggrin:
People look for meaning where none exists. But that's just how our minds work, trying to weave a narrative around the random, to make sense of our short little insignificant lives. So the fact that religion has dropped out of Christmas is fine by me. I much prefer the no less ridiculous fairy stories concerning Santa and his reindeer, elves, grottos and flying sleds. As with all these festivals, Christianity just usurped a perfectly good existing shindig. Xmas? Just celebrating the fact that the days are now getting longer and that summer will be back. Easter? Just a spring festival to celebrate the demise of winter. I think that both those events make a good excuse for a party. I can't really see what Christianity has got to do with it.
