Offended by Christmas???

[Tulin]

I don't think I have ever heard someone wish people "Happy Holidays" in Australia, saying "Merry Christmas" even to strangers is quite acceptable here. Retail staff etc wish people a "Merry Christmas" without it causing the slightest stir.

Indeed.

"Happy Holidays" is considered VERY American and thus not liked here in Australia.

I have always heard this was started by the Jews in America yet I work doing physio in a Jewish nursing home here and, last Friday when I finished work and started my Christmas holiday almost all of them wished me a "Merry Christmas!"

 

[Tulin]

... Australia is one of the most multicultural nations in the world...

Huh.

Learn something new every day; I always thought it was something you had to agree to give up when you moved to Australia...

WTF?!?!?!

Come to Perth - our local shopping centre is like little Beirut/Sudan/Iraq/Zimbabwe.

It's more a case of "Spot the whitey".

Trust me on THAT.

 

[Tulin]

Sorry I didn't see it as a joke, even if I should have. After listening to my eldest son raving against multiculturalism when he phoned me a few days ago I am probably a bit sensitive. My son actually believes, as do many other Australians, that migrants should become "Australian" when they come here.

I get so sick of hearing what comes out of some of these Ugly Australians' mouths especially as often it is the image of Australians that it broadcasted overseas.

No offense Miss Chicken because you sound like a lovely lady but I recently travelled to Tasmania and it is STILL VERY MUCH a representation of the 1950's "White Australia" we used to have(actually as is much of the rest of your state).

I wonder how you will feel when 10,000 African refugees move into your suburb and your rent goes from $120 per week to $380 because the landlords CAN charge it(due to massively increased demand), gangs of gangly "gangster" dressed six foot biafrans roam the streets until midnight and screaming children stand outside your front door bringing their own particular brand of cultural enrichment to your neighbourhood?

Yes, it's really fucking lovely.

Sorry but I have seen WHOLE suburbs here become ghettos for Middle Eastern and African "New Australians" while the rich in their leefy tree-lined posh areas complain that "LET MORE IN - there's not enough cultural diversity - we aren't seeing enough "colour"". That's because the government is shunting the whole boatload of them into the working class areas creating the PERFECT STORM for a future tinderbox of anger, overcrowding and resentment.

I actually look forward to the day when they start spilling over into Claremont, Nedlands and Dalkeith(rich areas)and the snobs there suddenly exclaim, "WTF?!?! Where do you lot all suddenly appear from?!?!"


There is a bumber sticker you see occassionally of a map of Australia with the term, "F*ck off - We're full!!!"

Trouble is, it's actually true - as I said, in some suburbs here it IS getting that way. I live here. I see it ALL the time.


So again, nothing against YOU MC but, as I said, Tasmanians CANNOT comment from their idyllic 15c lovely summer days. I was THERE and virtually saw NO Africans. Let them open a lovely asylum-seeker camp that will house FIFTEEN HUNDRED single Iraqi men, ten minutes from YOUR front door IF you really want it. If YOU feel safe sleeping with ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED Iraqi men housed that close to YOU, why don't YOU lobby to have it, instead of Northam and the town in South Australia that will have them inflicted upon them?

People here are getting scared, whether YOU feel they have a right to or not.

 

[Tulin]

And PS - I will be VERY disappointed if you come back with the lazy "You're a racist" catch cry.

Unlike the usual PC crowd that respond that way, try seeing it from the point of view of the people I mentioned above, rather than fall back on that tired and lazy old chestnut. Tell me WHY we must take ALL of these people when Perth has recently had THE DRIEST winter on record and our State run Water Department is now advising four minute showers per day with hints of massively increased prices for excess water useage in the future to come?

Further, we know that Asurtalia taking refugees is here to stay - for better or worse, it just IS but, tell me, in the place of a government that cannot, TELL ME this,

What is THE NUMBER?

At what point will life become similarly intolerable for the existing population that a line will be drawn saying, "We can NO LONGER take ANY MORE people"?

Many people are asking for THAT NUMBER now.

It does NOBODY any good if the conditions of poverty and depravation in the Middle East and Africa are imply transposed here by transplanting an over-abundance of the population from there to here.

Trust me, I am mostly moderate with a left leaning on many things but this increasing refugee immigration situation has MANY people worried. It's only those with an agenda I CANNOT, for the life of me understand that seem to be ignoring this and labelling those very people with the broad brush of Pauline Hanson or the Ku Klux Klan.

Again, that is lazy, patronizing and ignores the VERY REAL problems of over-crowding and poverty-transplantation.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Holy multiple posts, Batman!

 

[RJDiogenes]

Tulin, more than two Posts in a row is Spamming. Use "Edit" or "Multi-Quote" to combine Posts. If you do this again, you'll end up with a Warning.

 

[Miss Chicken]

No offense Miss Chicken because you sound like a lovely lady but I recently travelled to Tasmania and it is STILL VERY MUCH a representation of the 1950's "White Australia" we used to have(actually as is much of the rest of your state).

I wonder how you will feel when 10,000 African refugees move into your suburb and your rent goes from $120 per week to $380 because the landlords CAN charge it(due to massively increased demand), gangs of gangly "gangster" dressed six foot biafrans roam the streets until midnight and screaming children stand outside your front door bringing their own particular brand of cultural enrichment to your neighbourhood?

You could not have looked too hard if you didn't see any Africans during your stay in Tasmania. Maybe you were just in the wrong suburbs?

Tasmania, with only 2% of the Australia's population takes in about 3.4% of the refugees that arrive In Australia and the majority of them are from Africa. However it is very difficult in Tasmania for anyone to buy up, or take over a suburb because rental properties tend to be evenly scattered though out all suburbs. So though some suburbs do seem to be popular among the Sudanese (New Town and Kingston for example) the Sudanese community is more spread out than they are probably in other Australian capitals.

The average rent for a house in my suburb is over $300 a week. I don't think there is any suburb in Hobart where you can get anything besides a bedsitter for $120 a week.

 

[Holdfast]

... Australia is one of the most multicultural nations in the world...

Huh.

Learn something new every day; I always thought it was something you had to agree to give up when you moved to Australia...

WTF?!?!?!

Come to Perth - our local shopping centre is like little Beirut/Sudan/Iraq/Zimbabwe.

It's more a case of "Spot the whitey".

Trust me on THAT.

It pleases me greatly that a second Australian has now missed the full - if jokey - meaning of my line. It wasn't a suggestion that immigrants had to adopt a white culture, more a gag on the stereotyped perception of Australia as lacking any Culture whatsoever, white or otherwise, hence the need to abandon any pretensions to such on arriving. Just a friendly joke, don't go all Ponting on me and start whinging about it.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Indeed.

"Happy Holidays" is considered VERY American and thus not liked here in Australia.

I have always heard this was started by the Jews in America yet I work doing physio in a Jewish nursing home here and, last Friday when I finished work and started my Christmas holiday almost all of them wished me a "Merry Christmas!"

Henry Ford agrees with you in "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem".

“The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and other Christian festivals, and their opposition to certain patriotic songs, shows the venom and directness of [their] attack…And it has become pretty general. Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone’s Birth.”

Of course he also thought the Protocls of the Elders of Zion were a historically accurate account of the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, but that's just details.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

And PS - I will be VERY disappointed if you come back with the lazy "You're a racist" catch cry.

Nah, it's just a random crazy, angry, rambling, four-posts-in-a-row rant about scary ghetto-dwelling dark-skinned immigrants causing problems for white people by encroaching on their neighborhoods with a dash of Jews thrown in for flavor in the middle of a thread about Christmas by a guy completely missing the irony of being the descendant of immigrants himself. Calling it racist would be so cliché.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I declare 2011 to be the Year of The War on White Whining, and hereby appoint Garak honorary chairperson of the program.

 

[Mary Ann]

*munchmunchmunch*

Popcorn, anyone?

 

[Captain Shaw]

I bet she only comes once a year.

*sniff*... that's so sweet of you to come up with a punchline. It's... *sniff*... moments like this... *sniff*... that remind me of the true meaning of the festive season! *sniff*

Merry Christmas to all the hos, drunks and drug-addled retards out there. There wouldn't be comedy without you!

Such an attitude, and from Mary Poppins, no less! * and at the same time*

BTW, I watched Mary Poppins last night, inspired partly by your avatar. Fun. I'd actually never seen it before!

I have not seen Mary Poppins either, is it as sickly as the trailers make it out to be.

 

[Warped9]

after all—you don't always have the five days on, two days off schedule that the rest of the world does. I've had to work Boxing Day in the past when I worked in retail, and it never bothered me... just meant I got a little extra money for that shift.

Wrong. During the rest of the year I always have a regular shift since I'm not in sales.

And if you don't get it then too bad for you. The point was that as our society has become more retail oriented many of us have to sacrifice OUR Christmas time while others enjoy theirs. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but it bothers me. And money isn't everything as I'd rather have the extra time to spend with my family then the money.

I don't often think things were better before and anything new sucks. But in this case things were better before.

I don't think I even understand what the complaint is here anymore.

It was the War on Christmas, now it's the War on Boxing Day. I guess if we stick around enough, it will become the War on New Year, and finally the War on the Magi.

I never said it was a war. Those were someone else's words, not mine. But I for one value other things besides chasing a buck.

And believe me when I can get out of retail I'll do it as fast as possible.

 

[CaptainStoner]

"War is over if you want it" - John Lennon

"God pounds his nails" - heard this from a friend, not sure if it was an original

 

[iguana_tonante]

I don't think I even understand what the complaint is here anymore.

It was the War on Christmas, now it's the War on Boxing Day. I guess if we stick around enough, it will become the War on New Year, and finally the War on the Magi.

I never said it was a war. Those were someone else's words, not mine.

Courtesy of your OP:

Throughout its history Christmas has often been under attack by someone.

So, they were kinda your words.

And if you don't get it then too bad for you. The point was that as our society has become more retail oriented many of us have to sacrifice OUR Christmas time while others enjoy theirs. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but it bothers me. And money isn't everything as I'd rather have the extra time to spend with my family then the money.

If that was your problem (and I can somehow empathize with it, since I take holidays when I can, not when I want), why you started this thread bitching about how Christmas was under attack by evil people wishing "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and who are "hell-bent on erasing its recognition and perhaps even existence". It was incredibly silly, but at least it was coherent. But now it's about how you don't like to work on Boxing Day and your job sucks donkey balls. Which isn't silly at all, but it has nothing to do with the original topic.

 

[Warped9]

I see it as part of the same thing. I grew up at a time when there was actually such a thing as a Christmas holiday for majority of people. And so for me it's bad enough that more and more people get ever less of a Christmas holiday but some yahoo or other wants to minimize its recognition even more in some form or other.

 

[Miss Chicken]

So again, nothing against YOU MC but, as I said, Tasmanians CANNOT comment from their idyllic 15c lovely summer days. I was THERE and virtually saw NO Africans. Let them open a lovely asylum-seeker camp that will house FIFTEEN HUNDRED single Iraqi men, ten minutes from YOUR front door IF you really want it. If YOU feel safe sleeping with ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED Iraqi men housed that close to YOU, why don't YOU lobby to have it, instead of Northam and the town in South Australia that will have them inflicted upon them?

I would probably volunteer to do voluntary work at the camp and get to know the men and I would probably offer to pay one of them to do work around my garden.

I can see no reason why 1500 single Iraqi men would worry me and more than 1500 men of any nationality would.

The people of King Island (which is part of Tasmania) have been asking the government to send refugees to their island because the island is in desperate need of workers.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The point was that as our society has become more retail oriented many of us have to sacrifice OUR Christmas time while others enjoy theirs. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but it bothers me.

No, you said you do get Christmas off, but that you have to work on Boxing Day. Well, sorry to be blunt, but boo frickin' hoo. Welcome to having to work the same day as most of the working class people of the world. If you can't deal with not getting two days off at Christmas instead of one, I suggest you start hunting for a job that doesn't rely on retail sales or move to Ontario where they do get the day off apparently.

Do you spend Boxing Day giving money, gifts, food, or assistance to those less fortunate than you, as was intended? If so, maybe explain that to your boss and see if he or she will give you the time off. If not, you're not really living up to one of the original purposes of Boxing Day anyway. The other purpose is for bosses or customers to give money and gifts to service workers as a bonus or tip, which kind of requires one to be at work performing those services in order to receive it. Though I don't know how commonplace that is since we don't have Boxing Day here in the States.

I don't often think things were better before and anything new sucks. But in this case things were better before.

YOU don't often think things were better before and anything new sucks? Really?

STAR TREK: 1964-1979 (among other examples)

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist on that one because it struck me funny. Loudly and frequently proclaiming your dislike for new versions of old things seems to be one of your defining characteristics.

But what do you mean by "before." Did retail workers always get Boxing Day off previously and having to work is a recent thing?

I never said it was a war. Those were someone else's words, not mine.

No, it was pretty much implied by you saying "Christmas has always been under attack," as was pointed out. But regardless of you not calling it a "War on Christmas" directly, you resorted to all the same half-truths and complaints that typify that nonsensical made-up problem, so you can't blame people for calling a spade a spade.

But I for one value other things besides chasing a buck.

So do a lot of people. But you value having a job and providing for yourself and your family, right? You value having enough money to be able to afford all the gifts and trappings of the Christmas holiday you hold so dear, right? Having to work the optional secular holiday after Christmas that most people in the world don't celebrate seems like a small sacrifice to pay to enjoy Christmas day itself.

It's certainly not part of any lessening of the significance or number of participants in Christmas celebrations. Quite the opposite, actually, it's an affirmation of the importance of the holiday for people.

ETA:

I grew up at a time when there was actually such a thing as a Christmas holiday for majority of people. And so for me it's bad enough that more and more people get ever less of a Christmas holiday but some yahoo or other wants to minimize its recognition even more in some form or other.

When did there stop being "such a thing as a Christmas holiday for the majority of people" (and by that I assume you mean in nations with significant Christian populations)? Seriously, you've said it over and over again but never back it up. When I provided evidence to the contrary you skipped everything I said and responded with "well, I've seen it in Canada." Except the Canadian posters don't know what you're talking about either. Where is this mythical realm where Christmas is a thing of the past, because from where I'm sitting this has been something that's been complained about since C.S. Lewis and escalated ad nauseam by FOX News and right wing Christian groups in the past decade despite the Christmas tradition only expanding more and more into new areas (including predominantly non-Christian regions) each year?

What part of this is a total non-issue are you not getting? No one is trying to steal Christmas away from anyone. 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' was not a documentary.

 

[Warped9]

"Not often" doesn't mean "never." It means there are exceptions.