I have a little sweet jar with:

                                              Bah! Humbug!
                                           Royal Festival Hall
                                            Christmas 2000

on the label (I bought it half-price from the RFH gift shop in Jan 2001, natch).  I've filled it up and offered visitors humbugs every Xmas since then. 

This is where I used to celebrate Christmas

It's usually not snowy at Christmas, but one year, I dragged myself out there before sunrise and got an amazing pic (now lost in the junkpile somewhere) with purple snow and orange clouds.

The Christmas loathers amongst you may wish to repair to the Outer Hebrides, where the Presbyterians largely shun Christmas. You could quite happily avoid it altogether up there especially if you pick the right spot. Oh, and contrary to some beliefs, it's quite mild there in December, the benefits of the Gulf Stream keeping it largely frost-free. (Windy and damp, perhaps, but not much chance of snow.)

I do like doing Christmas activities with the children, and although my own are growing up now (the youngest is 11), as a primary school teacher, each year I have a class of enthusiastic 5-7 or 6-8 year olds and their delight at making Christmas ornaments, cards etc does make me happy. No doubt they'll be begging me to bring in that singing, dancing Christmas tree again...(this is my 3rd year with some of them) - for them, the naffer the better! We've started to learn the musical Nativity show but I'm hoping to save the rest of the Christmassy things till the beginning of December at least.

Perhaps Hate is too strong a word regarding Christmas.  What happened to me is that a relationship finally ended on December 5th.  In fact it had been in its death throes for a very long time, but the December date was when he finally moved out.

As you can imagine I was in no mood to 'do' Christmas and, because I set myself apart from it, I saw the greed, the conspiuous comsumption, the couples arguing in supermarkets as to whether they had enough cashews or carrots.  A nephew of someone I worked for was employed at a local supermarket.  One woman spent £1500 in one transaction on food and my first thought was "That's obscene"  And, coming out of that supermarket, trolleys laden, people were just not stopping to put any money in the Sally Army boxes, and bless them, they were playing their hearts out.

However, there have always been mid-Winter festivals and our Christmas is an amalgam of Saturnalia and Pagan Festivals so perhaps we need it to boost our spirits and to hope that Spring will come again.

As for New Year, I am with Mort and Mary on this.  In fact, on New Years Eve, if I'm not in bed by 10.30pm then I come home 

For me, as someone who loathes the commercialism and frenzy, and who has no religious belief, this is the one aspect of Christmas that really moves me; the ancient Pagan idea of the earth at its quietest, the day at its shortest, and the turning point between the dying year and the new one.  Of course the irony is that it is so much the opposite of the mainstream Christmas.

And of course there is the time with the family, and the good food.  Our Christmas begins next weekend - I suppose we're one of the few households left that still observes Stir-up Sunday and we'll be making the cake and the pudding.


No doubt you will avoid the problem a primary teacher friend of mine had a year or two ago when owing to inexperience, communication failures and a run-in with a couple of pushy parents, she ended up with five Wise Men .....

I dislike Christmas because my family make such a bloody fuss.