Monday, November 27, 2006

Away on a Merry-go-round

Every year there is a Christmas display in the shopping centre in our neighbouring town of Milton Keynes. This year is no different and even though I try and stay away from this crazy place and the waves of morons pushing their way past the shops with kids, pushchairs and a gazillion shopping bags full of useless stuff that they can not afford and have to pay for by credit cards which they won't be able to pay off when it appears on their statements in January, I had the misfortune to join them as we are apparently having 16 people invading our home for Christmas!
Now in past years the Christmas display had (as you would expect) a Christian theme but this is obviously not acceptable any more as it could be seen as discriminating against . . . well . . everything else!
Here are some pictures to explain what I am on about:

Santa's Grotto has been replaced by some house with creatures flying out through the top window! ???


There seems to be a pirate ship featuring in the nativity play these days!?
Seems like the 'fat bearded one' has been replaced by a pirate in red coat!


There are now trolls and goblins which seemed to have replaced the angels of the Lord!


and to top it all, the manger where the Lord Jesus Christ was born has been effectively replaced by a carousel, which seems to tell us that we are all on the merry-go-round of life!

So from now on would you kindly refer to Christmas as
The Feast of goblins, pirates and Red Indians*!
(* There was also a display of Red Indians smoking the peace pipe but I just couldn't bring myself to photograph it!)

Also . . .
I have been tagged by Yara and here then is my list of 10 simple pleasures:

Top 10 Simple Pleasures:

  1. Snuggling in with my wife
  2. Watching a movie
  3. Drinking a nice cup of Cappuccino
  4. Laughing at a good joke
  5. Playing "Trivial Pursuit" with friends
  6. Writing on my blog
  7. Playing my guitar
  8. Having a beer with a friend
  9. Going to a Live Concert of a band
  10. Cooking a nice meal

I am tagging Desert Songbird, Marnie and Momto3cubs

14 comments:

Yara said...

Good Job! Thank you. Interesting Mall decorations hu? What's it next year, a Care Bear's christmas. It could have been easy, you either stick with Santa or Nativity, can't go wrong with either one.

-Yara

Desert Songbird said...

I'm so tired of this political correctness GARBAGE. Whatever happened to the attitude of "When in Rome blah, blah, blah?" I mean, if you live in a Christian society, one would expect Christian-type social references. The same would be said for any other type of religious or ethnic culture. UGH. Okay -- I'll get off my soapbox now.

Hey, I just remembered -- you tagged me! That's my first tag ever! Wow, now I've really joined the world of blogging.

Anvilcloud said...

Hmmm ... maybe PC is a little more advanced over there than here. Perhaps, I use the word, advanced, inappropriately.

Desert Songbird said...

Regarding your donation to the PHA -- you are an incredibly kind and generous man, and I am moved to tears by your thoughtfulness. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The very nice man said...

Yara -
Care Bear Christmas! Hmmm??!?
Now there is a thought!! And the year after we could have Smurf Christmas!!

Anvilcloud -
If my maths is correct, you are about 5 hours behind us in England so I don't think you are "advanced", heehee!!

Desert Songbird -
Thank you so much for your kind words but I must pass the thanks on to the Lord, as it is He who supplies all things to me and I just want to give something back!
:-)

Tonya said...

I have to agree with the political correctness comment.I mean some things are fine but it has really become outrageous the things that are now "no no's" to say.. And as far as the displays.. well I was not aware that pirates and goblins etc had anything to do with christmas.. maybe they were confused and thought it was halloween fast approaching? lol I like your 10 simple pleasures.. Some of them are mine as well :)

The very nice man said...

Tonya - Thanks for visiting again! I have taken the liberty to add you to my "The best people in the verse" blog-roll.
P.S.: Stay away from the turkeys!! :-)

Anonymous said...

I work near Leicester in the UK and I enjoy all sorts of traditions, Christmas being something I enjoy the most. I associate the Christmas period with obviously the Christian festival but also Holly, Turkey, Christmas tress, family and so on. Today I found out that the City of Leicester cannot afford a Christmas Tree because it spent to much money on Diwali. It strikes me that if you do not hold tranditions dear how does one expect to keep a social fabric?

Kila said...

I hope they get plenty of complaints.

Isn't it nice how we have to be tolerant of everyone EXCEPT CHRISTIANS! Christians must be silenced!

Here in the USA so many people complained about the stores avoiding the word Christmas last year that this year stores are now going back to Merry Christmas, thank God.

Anonymous said...

afa.net has information on this. I ordered the magnets that say Merry Christmas, it's worth saying. I tell ALL of my customers Merry Christmas through out the month of December.

The very nice man said...

To all of you guys who have commented on this I like to say a huge "Thank You"!!
I thought I was going crazy but it is nice to see that there are others who care! I am quite tolerant of other religions but it is like Kila says: Christians can just be discriminated against in the name of the "Oh, we mustn't upset anybody else" campaign.
Well, this IS supposed to be a Christian country with Christian laws and Christian values and if anyone is getting upset with that, then just go and live in a Muslim country or whatever else is your bag!
One of my best friends is a Sikh and I don't see him getting all upset!! (puff puff . . rant over).

Janet said...

Dear oh dear...no...you aren't alone. What STRANGE "Christmas" decorations! And what a shame.

No wonder John hasn't been in a rush to take me to Milton Keynes...

Thanks for taking the time to let the world see this, through your blog.

Janet

little things said...

What a great post!

Anonymous said...

Oh oh oh! A tag.. you might have saved a no post day!

I'll get right on it.