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09/26/2002: the disadvantage of not having a halloween tradition
...is that the x-mas stuff starts earlier. While stores have been trying to establish a market for orange plastic pumpkins for a couple of years now, it doesn't really take root here. Okay, I admit, I bought a string of orange pumpkin lights last year -- hey, I thought I should support the presence of halloween merchandise in the faint hope it would encroach on the x-mas stuff *g* -- but overall halloween is pretty inconsequential. So as usual it will be just an increasing number of x-mas articles from now on. And I gave in early and had the first store bought Christmas cookies this week. Well, I could have bought them for weeks now, and it's always a compromise between not giving in to the ridiculous commercial prolonging of holiday season and actually wanting to eat store bought zimtsterne and lebkuchen when they are fresh and still soft (and not only suited to serve as stone-like projectile for a slingshot). Also they do taste quite good without a holiday season context as well, so maybe I should just start to think of them as autumn/winter cookies instead of as "Christmas cookies." On the upside, the special seasonal chocolate varieties (like the ones with cinnamon and roasted almost etc) are really good, also they don't degrade as easily over time as cookies, so I don't mind having those around longer at all.
Soon there will be the first reruns of "It's a Wonderful Life." A movie, BTW, which always depresses the hell out of me, because inevitably I end up thinking that if my life never happened nothing would turn out worse than before, and that without me having been born everything would be pretty much the same as with me, except that my parents would have had at least the chance to spend their money on something more fun than raising yet another kid that they didn't plan to have.
Posted by RatC @ 11:41 AM CET
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Replies: 2 comments
I'm not sure if I'm cheered or distressed to learn that the ridiculous overcommercialization of x-mas happens in Germany just like it does here in the US.
It is true that Halloween nonsense here takes up the store shelves for most of October, but the instant November appears we'll be swimming in hokey red-and-green x-mas stuff. Who the hell decided red and green were Jesus-related colors, anyway? Of course, they're not, and for most of the sales world the holiday doesn't appear to be especially Jesus-related, either, just an opportunity to sell more stuff...
The seasonal varieties of chocolate that you mention sound wonderful, though.
And I've been realizing lately that some of my favorite Jewish holiday treats -- honey cake for the Jewish New Year, for instance -- would be just as tasty at other times of year. I don't know why I don't bake them at other seasons. Maybe I should take a page from the x-mas book, and start making my holiday treats whenever the hell I feel like it... ;-)
Posted by Kass @ 10/08/2002 06:40 PM CET
Well, the green makes sort of sense, because of decorating with evergreen plants, hope for renewal in the winter etc., not really a Christian tradition, but at least it vaguely fits with hope of Jesus' birth or what not. I always thought the red became so popular for x-mas because of Coca-Cola. Didn't they popularize the Santa Claus version who wears their company colors of red and white? Though it could well be that red decorations were popular before Coca-Cola.
Posted by RatC @ 10/08/2002 07:48 PM CET
