I've decided to skip Halloween and Thanksgiving and just go straight into Christmas this year

I love Love Love fall- but the fall holidays are always just something to keep me distracted waiting for Christmas.

Yeah, I know. And since Christmas is really my aim in all of this, I'm just going around all the red tape and getting the lights set up this weekend.

Besides, Halloween is just stupid and annoying.

I don't want all those candy grubbing brats coming by my place.

I have to shut off the lights and get a hotel room just to get away from them.

The December Christmas observance is a pagan holiday that was “papered over” by the Roman Empire.
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Should have picked the best one then. Samhain or otherwise known as Halloween.

It wasn't papered over. Jesus Christ was born on December 18, the first day of the Saturnalia.

I wouldn't mind tomb sweeping day, or Hallows Eve if it weren't that all the children are dressed up like devils and goblins, or cheese pizzas.

No, I'm going to go ahead and be thrifty this year and focus on just one pagan autumn/winter holiday and keep it in memory of Christ.

Christmas carols start today.

It's a stupid holiday. I've seen fat Wiccan women clamoring about how great it is, but even they have a hard time getting excited.

They smile and cheerfully exclaim, It's a wonderful day to serve steak and remember dead people.

Great. That's all I needed.

I think the reason wiccans are such fat, angry women is because they know, deep down inside, that their holidays are empty and meaningless. Don't get me wrong, they really try to make them seem exciting and like there is something profound in it, but how excited can you get about meat harvest unless you're a fat glutton?

Yay, meat harvest.

It took candy marketing professionals just to make Samhain interesting enough to remember. And then, really, it is nothing more than social peer pressuring in order to extort candy.

They say trick or treat like you have some kind of choice in the matter.

You should fall some old oak trees and dry them out and make a big old life size nativity set out of six foot long logs. Then take some more timbers and create a frakwerk interior setting to give the whole interior of the house a nice christkindlmarket feel. Intricate carvings and tons of candles and poinsettas.

Get a large pipe organ and learn to play the classical christmas hymns. Buy cows and pigs from a farm auction, raise them and slaughter them, and make your own homemade meats and cheeses to put on a lions paw legged dark stained table in the kitchen. Grow some sugar canes and make your own candy canes.

Learn metallurgy and create your own weave and build your own textile mill to make awesome ribbons for your presents.

I think it's a very mature decision.

Just hang a few cobs of dried, wild corm in the window for TG flair.

Look, all I'm saying is that when your greatest holiday can be reduced in the economy to nothing more than a ritualized marketing strategy for candy mega-corporations, you have a stupid holiday.

It's like Valentine's day. Truth is everyone actually hates Valentine's day, and neither knows nor cares who Valentine was. It's about the candy. And if you don't get the candy, you are a social loser and outcast.

We live in a society that makes peer value judgments solely on how much candy you get at a particular holiday.

And you think ancient people were primative?

The very day is a abomination to God.

The day does not have any semblance to Christ.

Elizabeth (John's mother) was in her sixth month of pregnancy when Jesus was conceived (Luke:1:24-36).

The approximate time of year Jesus was born can be determined by when John was born.

John's father, Zacharias, was a priest serving in the Jerusalem temple during the course of Abijah (Luke:1:5).

Historical calculations indicate this course of service corresponded to June 13-19 in that year

In Luke 1:8-13, during this time of temple service that Zacharias learned that he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a child.

After he completed his service and traveled home, Elizabeth conceived (Luke:1:23-24).

We can assume that John's conception took place near the end of June, adding nine months brings us to the end of March as the most likely time for John's birth.

Adding another six months (the difference in ages between John and Jesus (Luke:1:35-36) brings us to the end of September as the likely time of Jesus' birth.
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How can ya skip Halloween???

I pick up 4 or 5 massive hershey bars and give them to the smallest kids (3 or 4 years old).

You should see their faces when I give it to them...you should see their parents faces :D