Essex Fells Holiday Homes Tour

I'm waiting for herbershevemel to ask what a "non-denominational holiday activity" is.

I would have LOVED to attend this but unfortunately, it's on a work day. Note to Essex Fells PTA and Foundation: Why not schedule next year's on a weekend day?

whats a "non-denominational holiday activity"

To be truly inoffensive, it should be "non-demoninational, non-celebratory activity"

If you don't believe but still celebrate, its like crashing someones wedding and not knowing anyone. You get the benefits of the party but don't need to bring gift. Either your in or your out.

Not so sure about that, Nellie. From the website:

Come and explore one of New Jersey’s most charming and exclusive towns decked in festive decor.

Uh oh!

Poor Herbie. Believe in what? Santa Claus? Reindeer? The winter season when trees and shrubs have no leaves and go dormant with the exception of evergreens which are, well, evergreen? Or maybe you don't like ice sculptures? If someone is Chinese and celebrates the solstice does that "count" in your book? It's a big party and any and all are welcome to join in the festivities, Herb.

herbeverschmel speaks the TRUTH!!!

Nothing like non-believers celebrating because everyone else is celebrating.

And because of this, let's just take the CHRISTmas out of the "holiday" so ALL non-believers feel welcome.

(Because as some fools here have led me to believe, even CHRISTMAS music feels oppressive.)

I have incontrovertible archeological evidence which settles the science in this area and supports the overwhelming scientific consensus that the Christmas/Winter holiday has nothing to do with Christ.

Unfortunately all the original data was lost when I moved my office in the 80's and all that remains is my "value enhanced" data, but it's incontrovertible proof nonetheless.

Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity.

Interestingly, all the seasonal rancor on this site is directed specifically against Christian celebrations. Ramadan comes and goes without so much as a whimper of protest, as does Eid. Even pagans and Wiccans (and their shaky claims to historical longevity) seem to get more respect from the clamorous here. I'm even betting that the made-up black nationalist-themed celebration of Kwanzaa (which always baffled the Senegalese with whom I used to have lunch almost daily) would rate more respect.

This really doesn't say much good about Baristaville, I suggest. Certainly not about reasonable expectations for true tolerance. And jerseygurl, you're really very much welcome to your bleakest-sounding of "parties." Perhaps you and Spiro T. can raises glasses to each other at such a loveless celebration, though I can't for the life of me imagine what you'd plausibly fill such glasses with by way of a toast. Wormwood and gall?

Interestingly, all the seasonal rancor on this site is directed specifically against Christian celebrations
----------------------

Yep...The problem doesn't lie in acknowledging all the winter celebrations; it lies in the fact that Christmas has become a bad word connected with a holiday that many want to sweep under the rug.

Interestingly, all the seasonal rancor on this site is directed specifically against Christian celebrations.

Actually, the only rancor I see here is the usual suspects complaining about the innocuous use of "Holiday" in place of Christmas.

We know, we know. Poor persecuted vast majority of christians. It's not enough that our president, or anyone else seeking public office, profess his love for your precepts.

Actually, Cathar, all the rancor in these posts is directed toward those who believe the "holiday" can and should be inclusive and need not be limited to Christianity. It's the Christian thing to do, is it not? Love thy neighbor as thyself? . If you celebrate Christmas, then that's your holiday. Same with Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Bodhi or whatever else. Let's not forget the holiday "season" includes the New Year. So again, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. For those who are not Christian - there are still plenty of reasons to celebrate life and to extend tidings of joy and peace to others. Loveless better defines your crabby insistence, along with herbeshmiel's, that those who are not Christian have no right to celebrate the holidays. Plural. There are more than one.

I've never insisted, never even intimated, that Christmas should be reserved for Christians, jerseygurl. I have, rather, marveled on the willingness of notable pinchfaces like yourself and Spiro T. to attempt to pare everyting specifically Christian about the holiday from its consideration. (The better, I suppose, to make it more acceptable to the aggressively anti-Christian who regularly troop through this site.)

But even as I might stilloffer you a cup of cheer myself were you to stumble past my doorway some snowy Yule night, I'd then also expect you out of politeness not to purposely slur the "God rest ye, merry..." part on the tune the Modern Jazz Quartet termed "England's Carol." My complaint is that you wish to remove everything that smacks of religiosity from this seasonal celebration, and I doubt very much you'd dare do something similar with, say, the dawn-to-dusk fasting required of devout Muslims during Ramadan. (Or would you be offering them fresh-boiled pierogen and galumpkis?)

That said, I also do worry a smidge that, were you somewhat bolder (and better organized politically), you would in fact seek to ban any recognition that even the "holiday house tour" in Essex Fells is in fact themed to, dependent on, Christmas. You do come off as that much of a stripped-down, bitter soul here, whatever your actual intention. Nowell, jerseygurl, nowell!

And Mike91, for all your sputtering efforts at verbal bravado, you just wind up sounding distinctly like the little kid who one year asked Santa for a red fire truck but didn't get it. So your resentments have sustained you through adulthood.

(You also wouldn't so cynically use a phrase like "poor persecuted Christians" were you, say, stationed by your company or Uncle Sam in Saudi Arabia. Or were simply a Copt in modern Egypt.)

There is a reason it was scheduled for the middle of a work day (for most human beings). They really don't want us there. I drive through Essex Fells on my way to work several days a week and I think that alone lowers the property values by 7.2%. Imagine if I still had my 1974 Screaming Eagle Pontiac Firebird! :)

Likewise, Cathar, I have never suggested that the most notable pinchface here (that would be you) should not celebrate Christmas. I even wished you a very Merry Christmas. I clearly stated that if your "holiday" is Christmas you should go ahead and celebrate. And you may not have suggest that Christmas should be reserved for Christians, but your co-idealogue Herb most certainly did. Some of those homes on the "holiday" house tour might even be populated by non-Christians (yes, it's possible that Jews, Buddhists, Taoists or even atheists might live in some of those homes). So I do wish you peace and joy and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas even though you cannot be gracious enough to do the same.

And Mike91, for all your sputtering efforts at verbal bravado, you just wind up sounding distinctly like the little kid who one year asked Santa for a red fire truck but didn't get it.

And for all your supposed sophistication (ha!), you can't or refuse to parse the points jerseygurl and I made. The use of 'holiday' is correct given that New Years and other religious holidays occur around now. It seems that only Christians are indignant enough to complain about it, even though their beliefs are catered to at every oppportunity.

You also wouldn't so cynically use a phrase like "poor persecuted Christians" were you, say, stationed by your company or Uncle Sam in Saudi Arabia. Or were simply a Copt in modern Egypt.

Oh brother. A standard cathar comment, signifying the usual, which is nothing. If I was stationed on the moon, I'd fine it tough to breathe, too.

No need to peek in my window, cathar, we have no tree at all. We worshop Baal and Dagon, as you noted yourself, many months ago. Thanks for reminding me - we need to dust off the sacred altar and rustle up some maidens and cattle rather shortly.
Now where did we put that darn thing......

Actually, Spiro T., your form of celebration sounds properly sybaritic. Much more fun than a night spent with guests reading "Letter To A Christian Nation" aloud to each other over at Mike91's.

I wish you good luck in your local search for, uh, "maidens," too. You won't find them in the clubs in Seaside Heights, I suspect.

And of course I'm not going to wish you a wonderfully merry Christmas, jerseygurl. But you do have my sincere wishes for a passable-at-best December 25th.

I also kind of doubt there are Taoist mansions on that Essex Fells tour. Or even rooms decorated specifically by "humanists" (and thus with with "seasonal greenery"). There was, however, a great slide show on the web site of England's Daily Telegraph a few weeks back, about a museum show in Germany showing how National Socialism, the very non-Christian philosophy which recruited to the ranks of the Waffen SS a division's worth of practicing Muslims, tried its darnedest to co-opt Christmas and Christian tradition each year of its 12-year reign. The swastika tree ornaments and wrapping paper were chilling in the extreme. And struck me as sort of the ultimate attempt to purge Christ from Christmas. Thank God that by contrast the local anti-Christians are so limited!

I go do a little work and come back to find cathar and 'gurl, backs arched, spitting at one another, and Mike91 playing the choral role once filled by the dear departed lasermike (long live lefty). Oh, joyous holiday!

I would suspect, though, that there are some houses on that tour that are decorated for Christmas and that the people that dwell in said homes proclaim they celebrate Christmas (and not a generic winter "holiday" or solstice) yet some of these people do not attend church on Christmas. And they do not have a nativity scene. And don't fret about whether they have taken the Christ out of Christmas.

I think calling a Christmas tree a holiday trees is silly. Why not just call them seasonal trees? Let's call a spade a spade. But, at the same time, let's recognize that people celebrate Christmas in different ways, some ways are more secular yet may still reflect the spirit of the season, i.e., joy, peace, kindness, generosity. And this provokes the ire of many. Hell, even Richard Dawkins had a Christmas tree in his house when his daughter was young.

Christmas means different things to different people and often different things to the same person throughout his/her life. But I have no idea why people who are non-Christians are placated by calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree. And I have no idea why so many Christians pass judgment on the way others celebrate the holiday.

Signed,
An agnostic cafeteria Catholic

Much more fun than a night spent with guests reading "Letter To A Christian Nation" aloud to each other over at Mike91's.

Actually, every year I make it a point to read "A Christmas Carol," so most likely I'd be reading that.

'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.

'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit,' who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'

I do wonder, though, if there are any houses on the tour that display a holiday candelabrum. (That's what I like to call a menorah so I don't offend myself because I don't celebrate Hanukkah.)

No one reads "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" anymore.
It's now called "How the Grinch Took On Too Much Debt and Sold Off Derivatives, and thus Defaulted During the Holiday Season."

My family is not Christian. But we always have a CHRISTMAS tree. We love the tradition, smell, beauty and joy that it brings us. Tho I've been given "flack" by various "friends" for culturally "confusing" my children, they understand that we are participating in a festivity from another culture/religion. Simple.

We also celebrate the Chinese New Year. Its fun. And my kids know that we are not Chinese. (I had to tell them because they are almost tall enough to see in the mirror)

I think our society has gone nuts trying to include everyone in every tradition. Wouldn't it all work better if we understood that we have different traditions that we can share?

I like the way you think, Monty.