I'm with Quills on this one! What is Christmas about again? As I recall, it was SUPPOSED to be about the celebration of the birth of a baby that was actually born some time in March (I've heard some good arguments that point to September as well, but March is the majority consensus). It's really celebrated on December 25th because the church wanted to convert as many pagans as possible (this is the date for the celebration of the birth of the pagan sun god Saturnalia). The church also kept the pagan tradition of bringing greenery indoors (Christmas Tree) to remind them about the joys that would come with springtime.
NOW Christmas is about buying as much crap as humanly possible. Has anybody noticed the awful Christmas Creep? It used to be that Christmas was more or less restricted to the month of December (an entire month of Jingle Bells and Silent Night is MORE than enough thank you)... then it started creeping into November, making the day after Thanksgiving (American) the busiest shopping day of the year. This year however, I saw Christmas stuff out before HOLLOWEEN!!! That's October for crying out loud! One holiday does NOT need an entire quarter, regardless of your religious affiliation. Heck, the dude was a carpenter! Carpenters are a pretty hard working and frugal crew, do you really think that he'd approve of the excess we've turned his birthday into?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy those cute little candycane shaped, peppermint candles I saw in the stationary store earlier.