tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post3324570061041340048..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Count your Christmas music blessingsLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-86222697759045857952012-12-06T11:57:44.179-05:002012-12-06T11:57:44.179-05:00Thanks, Beth. I need to fire up the Handel.
Bill,...Thanks, Beth. I need to fire up the Handel.<br /><br />Bill, exactly! :-)Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-68136679710951138712012-12-06T05:51:11.372-05:002012-12-06T05:51:11.372-05:00I heard O Holy Night in the 7-11 last night.I heard O Holy Night in the 7-11 last night.William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-14772139376835910142012-12-03T10:40:35.471-05:002012-12-03T10:40:35.471-05:00I love Christmas music and can hardly get enough o...I love Christmas music and can hardly get enough of it. I started playing it in my office as soon as we got back from break and my students can just suffer when they come in to talk to me! <br /><br />I have 6 or 8 albums on iTunes and play them on my computer; some are instrumental, some with the lyrics. Dulcimer, orchestra, Celtic, choir, etc. so lots of variety in style. And I am not all averse to Christmas music in July or any other time. :)Beth Impsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-42477350580417072032012-11-30T16:54:01.334-05:002012-11-30T16:54:01.334-05:00BTW, I just went to your main webpage. Coincidentl...BTW, I just went to your main webpage. Coincidently, YOur church has the same name as mine. Exactly the same name (but mine's ACA).Bruce B.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-30525330766268798952012-11-30T15:44:18.792-05:002012-11-30T15:44:18.792-05:00Yes, I'm talking about grocery stores. Around ...Yes, I'm talking about grocery stores. Around here they all have music.<br /><br />A Wiccan with a severed head? I thought Wiccans were into non-violence and stuff...Guess not so much.<br /><br />Your deprived neighbor boy reminds me of another point that fits with the main post: There really is a war on Christmas. "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" is annoying, but there is something to be said for continuing to celebrate Christmas and acknowledging it in the public square. Sometimes I think that all the people who say, "I'd rather have nothing than have x" (such as "I'd rather have no public recognition of Christmas than have it so commercialized") don't really know what they are asking for. Would they really like a post-Christian society in which "Christmas" is a dirty word? I doubt it. At least, I hope not.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-86864463884086217622012-11-30T15:26:54.108-05:002012-11-30T15:26:54.108-05:00I should say that I only go into grocery stores, W...I should say that I only go into grocery stores, Wal-Mart (when I have to) and, very rarely, Target. We buy clothes at thrift stores, consignment stores and online. I never go into the malls.<br />Our neighbors three houses down are Wiccans. They have a large Halloween maze filled with horror props that is very popular in our community. A couple of years ago, the mother was on the front page of the local community newspaper with a bloody white smock and a fake severed head. They celebrate Yule. I was talking with their 10 year old last weekend. He literally substitutes “Yule” for “Christmas” in everything. For example “we get such and such for Yule presents”, we put up our Yule tree”, my sister gets “Yule” money. I am serious. The word “Christmas” has been eliminated from this child’s vocabulary. <br />Bruce B.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-63457125094695192992012-11-30T13:10:45.693-05:002012-11-30T13:10:45.693-05:00You don't have music in the stores? Wow. I did...You don't have music in the stores? Wow. I didn't know there were any stores anywhere in the U.S. without music. That sounds refreshing.<br /><br />I definitely know what you mean about the things you see. Halloween has become extremely "dark" in recent years. A few years ago I had a neighbor, fortunately not on our own street but a few streets over, who used to hang up extremely realistic-looking plastic severed human feet and such over a table with knives on his front lawn through the entire month of October. I don't know if he does so anymore, because I stopped walking that way with the children. One year I actually went and tried to explain to him that this was a problem, but I received an incomprehensible growl and injunction to get the hell off his property or something like that, so I dropped the matter.<br /><br />I can remember dressing up as a little shepherd for Halloween one year with my brother and hearing my parents tell about how the man at one door said, "Oh, no, the Arabs are coming!" (And that tells you how old I am.) It was really innocent. Not anymore.<br /><br />No, you're not a prude. Especially at Christian sales, such products should not be available. It sounds to me like they're just taking whatever people donate to them to sell and selling it.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-5990443206011567282012-11-30T12:31:34.964-05:002012-11-30T12:31:34.964-05:00An unrelated tangent here but I’ve been to two dif...An unrelated tangent here but I’ve been to two different Anglican Church thrift stores (my Church included) that were selling videocassettes of really horrible movies like Silence of the Lambs. In the more recent case, it’s on the table in the fellowship hall with a bunch of books that are for sale where the proceeds go to a Ugandan sister Church. It seems dirty to me to let God’s Church to profit off something like that. No one gets it. Am I just a pietist prude??Brucenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-44254821334440702652012-11-30T12:20:44.320-05:002012-11-30T12:20:44.320-05:00Down here (I live near Mr. Luse) I don’t hear any ...Down here (I live near Mr. Luse) I don’t hear any music at all in the stores. The worst problem in our stores is the things you see. The smut magazines at the checkout counter as you mention. But the worst thing is the large displays starting in September for Universal Studios’ “Halloween Horror Night” which features things like rotting zombies. Looking at them makes you literally physically ill. Sometimes I want to go berserk and just destroy their displays but I don’t want to go to jail.<br /><br />We shop at a German-owned store (U.S. headquarters in Batavia IL) called Aldi. They have great prices, they don’t have any magazines, Halloween Horror Nights advertisements,etc. and they might be Christian owned (don’t know this but, for example, their egg cartons have Bible verses written on them).<br />Brucenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-24899295222660183692012-11-24T10:05:54.681-05:002012-11-24T10:05:54.681-05:00Yeah, exactly. And it's also the only time of ...Yeah, exactly. And it's also the only time of year when one occasionally will hear an explicitly Christian song in the public space. "O Holy Night," for example.<br /><br />Now, where I do begrudge it a bit is on the Christian radio station I listen to, because on that station the switch to all Christmas music is to some extent not an improvement. Their regular fare is, on average, better than the jingly secular Christmas music which they now include, and they could just stick to their regular Christian gospel music for, say, another three weeks or so before kicking into 24-7 Christmas mode.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-74797905864654411082012-11-24T05:35:26.539-05:002012-11-24T05:35:26.539-05:00I try to get going on the Christmas music as early...I try to get going on the Christmas music as early as possible so as to give my normal state of cynical cultural despair an uplift. If I have to suffer through many renditions of Frosty the Snowmans, so be it. <br /><br />"Mouthwash for the brain." That's a good one.William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.com