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Follow the lead of the average American and try trimming your expenditures without sacrificing any of the holiday experience. Before you hit the mall or organize a big party, it can help to have a comprehensive plan in place so you know exactly where your money is going this holiday season — that way, you can ring in the new year with celebration rather than panic.
Here are several ways to keep your spending under control this December. There are a couple different ways to set a holiday budget. You might want to establish a general spending cap, or try allocating a specific amount to each person on your gift list.
The Christmas season, also called the festive season, or the holiday season is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and. the holiday season meaning, definition, what is the holiday season: the period between Thanksgiving and New : Learn more.
Be aware, though, that while making a holiday budget is great, it can go sour in one of two ways:. Personally, I keep a separate Christmas fund in a dedicated bank account. This makes it easier for me to separate holiday spending from regular, day-to-day expenses.
Spreadsheets are also an excellent and accurate way to track your holiday expenditures. By establishing a budget and entering your real expenses, you can easily keep yourself on track. Just be sure to remain diligent. Cutting back on those extras can have a big impact on your bottom line. Add in the 11 nieces and nephews, and buying for the family becomes a huge expense — not to mention a major drain on my schedule. Our local church decorates a tree with ornaments, each decoration with the age, gender, and specific Christmas wish of a child in need. Instead of buying presents for my own family members, we choose to purchase gifts for the anonymous beneficiaries.
The best part is that each individual family chooses as many ornaments as they can afford — some can buy for an entire family, while others can pick one or two ornaments to fit their budget.
In the past, my kids and I have had fun picking out toys, clothes, and books for children of a similar age. Not only does a Secret Santa experience help relieve some of the stress and financial burden of exchanging gifts with every member of my family, it gives us a chance to talk about the importance of service and giving during the holidays. Funneling what you would have spent on family gifts to those in need is a great way to give back, have a charitable experience with your loved ones, and relieve holiday stress.
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Send me a special email on my birthday. From Our Partners Send me alerts, event notifications and special deals or information from our carefully screened partners that may be of interest to me. I understand that I can withdraw my consent at any time. They have somewhat decreased in popularity in the United States and Canada in recent decades, but polls in indicated that they remained more popular than "happy holidays" or other alternatives.
The same phrase is contained in the title of the English carol " We Wish You a Merry Christmas ," and also appears in the first commercial Christmas card , produced by Henry Cole in England in The word "merry" was then beginning to take on its current meaning of "jovial, cheerful, jolly and outgoing. The cynical Ebenezer Scrooge rudely deflects the friendly greeting: A merry Christmas to everybody! The alternative "happy Christmas" gained usage in the late 19th century, and in the UK and Ireland is a common spoken greeting, along with "merry Christmas.
One year included both greetings, [72] and "blessed Christmas" was used in and [73]. Nicholas " , the final line, originally written as "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night", has been changed in many later editions to "Merry Christmas to all," perhaps indicating the relative popularity of the phrases in the US.
In the United States, "happy holidays" along with the similarly generalized "season's greetings" has become a common holiday greeting in the public sphere of department stores, public schools and greeting cards. The increasing usage of "happy holidays" has been the subject of some controversy in the United States. Advocates claim that "happy holidays" is an inclusive greeting that is not intended as an attack on Christianity or other religions, but is rather a response to what they say is the reality of a growing non-Christian population.
Critics of "happy holidays" generally claim it is a secular neologism. The greeting may be deemed materialistic, consumerist, atheistic, indifferentist, agnostic, politically correct or anti-Christian. Critics of the phrase have associated it with a larger cultural clash termed the " War on Christmas ".
In addition to "Merry Christmas", Victorian Christmas cards bore a variety of salutations, including "compliments of the season" and "Christmas greetings. By the s it had been shortened to "season's greetings," [76] and has been a greeting card fixture ever since. Several White House Christmas cards, including U.
Eisenhower 's card, have featured the phrase. Various studies have been performed on the effects of the Christmas and holiday season, which encompasses several feast days , on health. They have concluded that the health changes that occur during the Christmas and holiday season are not reversed during the rest of the year and have a long-term cumulative effect over a person's life, and that the risks of several medical problems increase during the Christmas and holiday season.
They found that average weight gain over the Christmas and holiday season is around 0. They also found that this weight gain is not reversed over the rest of the year, and concluded that this "probably contributes to the increase in body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood" cf Lent. They concluded that the winter holidays did influence the glycemic control of the patients, with the largest increases being during that period, increases that "might not be reversed during the summer and autumn months".
The Christmas and holiday season, according to a survey by the ADA, is the second most popular reason, after birthdays, for sharing food in the workplace. The British Columbia Safety Council states that if proper food safety procedures are not followed, food set out for sharing in the workplace can serve as a breeding ground for bacteria, and recommends that perishable foods for which it gives pizza, cold cuts, dips, salads, and sandwiches as examples should not sit out for more than 2 hours.
A survey conducted in found shopping caused headaches in nearly a quarter of people and sleeplessness in 11 percent.
They concluded that the Christmas and holiday season is "a risk factor for cardiac and noncardiac mortality", stating that there are "multiple explanations for this association, including the possibility that holiday-induced delays in seeking treatment play a role in producing the twin holiday spikes". It recommends that asthmatics avoid scented candles, for example, recommending either that candles not be lit or that soy or beeswax candles be employed.
Because of the cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere, the Christmas and holiday season as well as the second half of winter is a time of increased use of fuel for domestic heating. This has prompted concerns in the United Kingdom about the possibility of a shortage in the domestic gas supply. However, in the event of an exceptionally long cold season, it is industrial users, signed on to interruptible supply contracts, who would find themselves without gas supply.
Fire Administration [27] states that the Christmas and holiday season is "a time of elevated risk for winter heating fires" and that the fact that many people celebrate the different holidays during the Christmas and holiday season by decorating their homes with seasonal garlands, electric lights, candles, and banners, has the potential to change the profile of fire incidence and cause. It states that consumers don't expect candle holders to tip over or to catch fire, assuming that they are safe, but that in fact candle holders can do this.
Because of increased alcohol consumption at festivities and poorer road conditions during the winter months, alcohol-related road traffic accidents increase over the Christmas and holiday season. In the United States, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has had significant legal impact upon the activities of governments and of state-funded public schools during and relating to the Christmas and holiday season, and has been the source of controversy.
Public schools are subject to what the Anti-Defamation League terms the "December dilemma", [85] namely the task of "acknowledging the various religious and secular holiday traditions celebrated during that time of year" whilst restricting observances of the various religious festivals to what is constitutionally permissible. The ADL and many school district authorities have published guidelines for schools and for teachers. Banks, post offices and public institutions were to do the same from December 15, with violators liable for fines of up to rubles.
Every business was ordered to have illuminated windows during the hours of This caused a mixed reaction, with people objecting to being forced to put up decorations. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Christmas season disambiguation. Christmas tree in Japan. Christmas is celebrated by an increasing number of non-Christians around the world.
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the Northern Hemisphere and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article , discuss the issue on the talk page , or create a new article , as appropriate. August Learn how and when to remove this template message. For other uses, see Happy New Year disambiguation. For the Bing Crosby album, see Christmas Greetings album. For other uses, see Merry Christmas disambiguation and Happy Christmas disambiguation.
For other meanings of "Happy Holidays", see Happy Holidays disambiguation. For other meanings of "Season's Greetings", see Season's Greetings disambiguation. This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. County of Allegheny v. Christmas portal Holidays portal Advent portal. Archived from the original on November 26, Archived from the original on December 28, John Lewis, too, has reported a fantastic start to the Christmas season, with sales up nearly 6 per cent on a year ago.
Retrieved August 14, Retrieved October 27, Retrieved December 24, New England Journal of Medicine. As with the Easter cycle, churches today celebrate the Christmas cycle in different ways. Practically all Protestants observe Christmas itself, with services on 25 December or the evening before.
The American Book of Days. Archived from the original on April 4, Split On 'Happy Holidays' Vs. McKnight; Roger Aubrey Bullard Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Retrieved July 10, A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture. Retrieved 27 December We keep a feast on the 2nd of February, forty days after Christmas, in memory of our Lord's Presentation in the Temple. This feast has several names. First, it is known as the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus. But the usual and popular name for this Feast is Candlemas-day, because on this day candles are blessed before Mass, and there takes place a procession with lighted candles.
Candles are blessed and lighted on this particular feast.