my parents take birthdays and christmas VERY SERIOUSLY and my birthday is p. close to christmas so basically i'm getting a shit ton of clothes that i've been wanting and a couple odds and ends.

i'm also going to be buying this as a present for myself if the shipping service i contacted isn't atrociously expensive
http://teeparty.jp/pid/8357

what's this!   is that expesnsive?

i don't really know ! ! ! there's just a REALLY HUGE series of shirts done by a japanese designer with dogs and bizarre shit. and yeah, it's p. pricey, the shirt itself is like $40 and i don't know yet how much having it bought for me and shipped here is, but frig i'm having a birthday AND graduating so i'm gonna fuckin splurge on this shirt if it's not ridiculous on the proxy end of things

bonerz

I bought my mom an early Xmas gift last month of a laptop.

though we ain't religious, we just like to get each other neat things. Got my mum some tapes, records and a ds puzzle game. My dad will get a doctor who comic book, and audio book boxset and my brother's getting a lego set as well as a Batman promo thing (not something easily avaliable but like something they used in-house)

i love Christmas!! i am the youngest of five kids in my family. contrary to what may usually be the trend, Christmas for me has only gotten more exciting as i get older, because it is one of the few times every year where my whole family is together. and with all of us getting older, we are more able to get gifts for each other. so nowadays, Christmas isn't just about getting cool things from our parents-- it's a gift exchange between all of us. my 29-year-old brother and his wife will be flying back home (from Massachusetts to Michigan) and staying for like 10 days over Christmas break, so i'm really looking forward to seeing them! we always play cool board games and video games together. "family fun time" was pretty nonexistent during my childhood. i guess it's only now, when we see each other less often, that we've learned to pack in as much fun stuff as possible into those times.

aaaannyway, i don't have much money at all... so sadly i can't buy much for my family. though i did buy a plushie of the girl penguin from Mawaru Penguindrum for my sister-in-law, because she loves that show and wants to cosplay the main female character (to whom the girl penguin belongs). i think i'm going to try to make some gifts for the rest of my fam-- thankfully i have some creative talents that i can utilize for that. i'm going to make some paintings and digital drawings and little sculptures. and for my oldest brother, who loves indie games (and is a huge fan of chef's games and youtube videos), i'm going to put together a little USB drive for him with games on it by thecatamites, GZ Storm, dicko, etc... lots of cool GW/SW creations. i think my brother would appreciate that. :>

I would say overall that it is really not, but nobody over here ever says that out loud because of how the few people that do see it as a religious holiday would overreact.

If it is not passive-aggressively persecuting all non-christian religions, it is not really following in the Christmas spirit.

I would say overall that it is really not

Oh, look at that.  Another soldier in the War on Christmas.  You are all godless heathens. 


Anyway for Christmas I want all those gross homeless people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get JOBS and stop being so gross!!

Is christmas still seen as a religious holiday in the US? Like there aren't that many people religious here where I live (particularly in Rotterdam) but everybody celebrates christmas.

the vast majority in America celebrates Christmas, regardless of religion or lack thereof. those who ARE Christian often do incorporate religious aspects into their celebration, such as going to church for a Christmas Eve service, reading the story of Jesus's birth out loud as a family, etc... though there's also plenty of people who call themselves Christians but who do not celebrate Christmas in any religious way. and most Christians also practice the more secular aspects of the holiday as well (such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, stockings, decorative lights, wreaths, and so on). it's a very small minority who prattle on about the "pagan traditions" and the "war on Christmas", which is mostly popularized by conservative political pundits. i imagine their Christmas celebrations are pretty boring and not very festive.

for my family personally: my parents are both pretty conservative Christians. we've always done all the traditional Christmas things, like having a tree, and putting up stockings, and whatever. we also do some religious things, like decorating with Christian symbols and nativity sets, and going to church on Christmas Eve. the only popular Christmas tradition we never did was the whole Santa Claus thing. my parents never taught us to believe in Santa Claus, and they explained the truth to us if we asked about it. the lack of Santa makes the holiday more about giving presents (as opposed to just getting them) and about appreciating family, so i'm personally very glad for the absence of Santa in my life-- i think it's a dumb tradition anyway, and i doubt i would have believed it for very long if i had been taught it :P i probably would've just looked it up on the internet or asked on GW. (this is how i learned about sex, by the way. i received "the talk" from Steel, but never from my parents. hahah)

Christmas is probably my favorite holiday :D and winter is my favorite season. i hope it snows on Christmas this year! thankfully, it usually does, for me. i think snow is beautiful~ :3

I'm not going to lie, as a kid I pretty heavily believed in Santa. Pretty big let down when I found out he didn't exist. I wasn't all that bothered to find out that the Easter bunny and tooth fairy did not exist though.

One year when my brother and I were kids we investigated the Easter Bunny to determine whether or not it was real using evidence from around the house, such as hidden candy that we determined would later be used to fill our easter baskets.  We made a list of evidence for and against its existence, and we came up with some justifications for why the evidence against its existence didn't really prove anything.  At the end I concluded that the Easter Bunny did not, in fact, exist, and my brother got mad at me.

... Unless I'm misremembering it and I instead said "I will never not believe" and my brother actually just gave me this dumbfounded "are you serious" speech.

xmas

well, i'm getting a cheap cellphone but i can't give anything due to finances.
but that's okay cos getting together for dinner and seeing how well others in family are doing is way more worth than any amount of presents.

do you know my friend ???????

saltw cannot handle greek letters

dont f$Uck with my holiday.