They have fireworks every day in Beirut too! :D

Yes, but I bet the people who have to attend every night are heartily sick of it. Unless their souls are dead, which really, is their target audience anyway. ;)


That is awesome! I looks almost like each church has opened a mouth of Hell directly below it and pointed it at the other church. Amazing they haven't burnt each other down. Or maybe they have and the church-rebuilding market is a jobs program there.

Damn, I wish I'd used something like this in my example instead of the whole "gluttony-'n'-sports" stereotype!

I believe U.S. debate rules would allow it.

Don't wear sexy clothes around Christmas, and avoid physical contact...

You should be a tourism spokesman!

Actually it's suppose to be Yule, the twelve day Germanic folk celebration of survival, renewal, the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new year. It would have been too cold in Israel for their to be sheep out in the fields in late December.

That is pretty much all you need but then it would be called Yule instead of Christmas and it would last for twelve days ending on January first or a couple of days later. You would get to light a sun cross on fire though.

hell i can even smell Christmas in my neighborhood

I actually quite liked it. Pretty interesting to see Dick Maas return to such material after more than twenty years.

Besides, there's already a whole bunch of movies about murderous Santas (like Christmas Evil; Silent Night, Deadly Night; Santa's Slay; Rare Exports), so I think it's only fair if the Dutch get in on that with their own holiday traditions...

It's damn annoying here already but every time I see how it's handled in the US I begin to pity you guys.

Idk, I think it's just what is done these days. I started celebrating Veterans Day in late August and still am, even though the holiday has passed. I started celebrating Labor Day on Memorial Day and boy was my boss thrilled.

In seriousness, though, this is the first time in 3 years I'm flying back to Texas for Christmas. I've been enjoying the mid-January skip-the-end-times-at-the-airport-seasonal-joy thing, but I owe my parents an actual Christmas every now and then. :)

Nor have I, and (I hope) nor will I.

...So, clearly, you celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years by yourself by getting roaring drunk and playing Destiny while verbally abusing your 12-year-old opponents?

Well, that's just a given. But I'll make sure to link people back to your post whenever anyone is in doubt as to my awesomeitude. =)

Exactly why is there a Black Friday anymore with the internet? With all the annoying shit we have to deal with because of it, isn't losing the demand for Black Friday something we can rejoice in and praise the internet for?

Clueless European here.
What's a Black Friday? Does it have anything to do with gifting slaves? Allusion to Robinson Crusoe?
I've heard about some strange customs surviving the centuries.

Oh sorry. Ignorant American here. :P Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when Christmas shopping is supposed to start and all the sales begin. It traditionally involves thousands of people pilling up outside stores and trampling each other to death to get the best deals.

Think of a British Soccer Riot only without any score keeping.

Or an Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy without the funny accent...