[❇ Abby ❇]

I haven't seen him on t.v. over here since the mid to late `80's!! I think the last time I saw him was on an episode of, "An Evening At The Improv".
It's the new yuppie version of New Years day meaning it's the first night of the new year. ranks right up there with me with phrases like, "Selfies", "Happy Camper", "hashtag", and other annoying "new" words and phrases the Nuevo riche like to use a lot instead the real words.
I guess New years eve and new years day aren't yuppie enough and because they've been used traditionally around the world for centuries.
Trust me, I COMPLETELY understand your view on sparkle season!! I laugh my ass off at it, too!! I don't know if they do this over there yet, and I'll TRY not to go off on a tangent about it, but, over here, as of about 5 years ago, radio starts playing 24/7 Christmas music from midnight Halloween night until the stroke of midnight Christmas night!! It's RIDICULOUS!!!! A lot of these yuppie bastards put up their Christmas tree the first week of Nov. and start singing Christmas carols at the thanksgiving day dinner table!! Then, the tree comes down and is in the garbage the day after Christmas!!
This year, I've been almost pleasantly surprised to find that the 24/7 music didn't start until about a week before Thanksgiving (the last Thu. in Nov.) and, although it DID stop being played 24/7 at the stroke of midnight Christmas night, they ARE still playing a Christmas record once every hour or so! AND, so far, there's been NO trees (that I've seen) thrown out OR even taken down, just yet!!
The tradition USED to be that they'd play maybe one Christmas record an hour starting the 2nd week of Dec., then gradually get it up to 3 an hour by the next week, then mostly Christmas music the week before, then nothing but Christmas music the whole week of Christmas and a few days after, gradually dwindling down to one song an hour again by the 2nd week in Jan., then none at all. Trees used to ONLY go up Christmas eve after the kiddies went to bed, eventually, once they got a few years older, they got to help putting them up about 2 weeks before Christmas, then they'd get taken down around the 2nd week of Jan.
Christmas has become SOOOO commercialized!!!! It's not even fun anymore because it's SHOVED DOWN YOUR THROAT for a SOLID two months!!!!
There, no tangent. :-) Just a calm diatribe until that last bit, but even with that, I was calm! :-)
Easter ALREADY???? WOW!!!! Next week they'll be advertising Halloween!!!! AMAZING how times flies, isn't it?? I can HARDLY wait `til NEXT Christmas starts....in about a month!!

It's all as bad over here. A lot of places had Christmas stuff for sale at the same time as Halloween stuff, so early to mid October and as soon as Halloween was over everywhere had Christmas decorations up.

Each year we now have a TV debate about the over commercialisation, loss of Christian values and diluting the reason behind Christmas. Even worse is the debate over the removal of the religious reasons for the celebration to prevent upset and aid the inclusion of other religions and cultures.

I am not at all religious but I defend the right of those who are to celebrate their holidays and traditions without dilution to placate others.

Last year a couple of companies imported the idea of black Friday sales. This year many more companies took on the idea, so we were subjected to TV footage of customers assaulting each other, riot and arrests. All for nothing other than a companies desire for publicity gained by preying on consumer greed.

Denita