Christmas is currently celebrated in late December. This tends to be around the coldest part of the year in most northern-hemisphere countries (although January is worse). Christmas is also one of the busiest times for travel, despite the horrible weather, and for retailing, both in the run-up and the sales afterwards.

Moving Christmas to a warmer time of year would make travel easier, enabling people to visit their loved ones more easily, and reduce the number of accidents. It would also make shopping more pleasant, increasing commercial revenues. There is no evidence Jesus was born in winter, so there are no religious reasons to keep it there.

Moving it to July is one possible answer, but is likely to prove unpopular with those in the bottom hemisphere, who already enjoy the benefit of warm Christmases. A compromise would be to move it to September or October. This would have the added benefit of making it half a year away from Easter.

(I would have liked to call this Move Christmas, but there's already a "Move Christmas To January" idea, which has fewer merits.)
-- pottedstu, Oct 11 2001

September and October also often have pretty awful weather in Britain, in fact the only difference between October and December is about 4 degrees and earlier sunsets. How about instead of having a set day worldwide, each individual country can choose it's Christmas Day to correspond with the best climatic conditions. That way you could travel the world and it could be Christmas Day (nearly) every day!
-- CoolerKing, Oct 11 2001


I would actually like the guarantee of snow throughout the last 2 weeks (ish) of December so that Christmas would be more 'seasonal', too often now (especially in the UK) we just get a sort of pathetic sludge or ice for Christmas
But then I rather like rain too .. Taxi for T_E_A
-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Oct 11 2001


Turkeybone! Can you imagine having to endure a UK winter without having Christmas to break it up?
-- stupop, Oct 11 2001


I was going to fishbone this, pottedstu for two reasons...
1. They'd have to change the lyrics of most of the Christmas songs or issue a whole lot of new ones (what a terrible, terrible thought).
2. 'Cause you dissed my own superbly, brilliant and magnificent Christmas idea.

However, you managed to save yourself with your reference to the 'bottom' hemisphere. There's nothing quite like the feeling of superiority that you get from living in the 'top' hemisphere.
-- DrBob, Oct 11 2001


[DrBob]: You wanted to move Christmas to the only month colder than December. What do you expect? Also, we might get a few years of peace and quiet before they rewrite all the songs. (Although I'm expecting lewisgirl and unabubba to start weighing in with the autumn carols any time now.)

I'd also like to combine Halloween with Xmas, but October 31 is a bit late for optimal Xmas time. Maybe we could move Halloween to midwinter. And, [stupop], there'd still be New Year's Eve to celebrate, which is much more fun anyhow, so this would have the effect of spreading out holidays more equitably.
-- pottedstu, Oct 11 2001


The clinching argument: if we move Christmas to September this year, we'll've missed it. Just think - no shopping, no interminable family meals with stupid right-wing relatives, no cheesy TV Xmas specials, no agonizing over presents, no fighting over the last turkey, no three episodes of EastEnders in a day...

[blissmiss] That would be the coolest thing in the world ever. Really. I think I'll have a combined Halloween/Christmas party on November 27th. Come one, come all!
-- pottedstu, Oct 11 2001


Actually, that isn't so stupid. Halloween, like Saturnalia, is a festival of chaos, misrule and disorder.
-- pottedstu, Oct 11 2001


"The clinching argument: if we move Christmas to September this year, we'll've missed it. "

You say that like its a BAD thing. I'm -already- bloody sick of xmas. US stores start putting up their xmas crap the day before the 4th of July, it seems like.
-- StarChaser, Oct 11 2001


There is a disadvantage to having Christmas in the middle of summer, and that is that the weather is almost pessimal for eating roast turkey.

«putting up their xmas crap the day before the 4th of July» Would that be the 3rd of July, or do you operate on a slightly different calendar to the rest of the world?
-- cp, Oct 12 2001


Don't move Christmas, just move your celebration. I'll gladly spend December snowbound in exchange for you celebrating Christmas in >40 degree celsius (104+F) weather.
-- sirrobin, Oct 12 2001


But you also speak disparagingly of English weather. There's no pleasing some folk.
-- angel, Oct 12 2001


Roast turkey's yuk anyway: bland flavourless meat produced by a freakish bird that's so fat it's physically incapable of copulating, and has to be manually masturbated by a guy in rubber gloves.
-- pottedstu, Oct 12 2001


Hell, no, Rods Tiger. I want my celebrations all clumped together around the deepest, darkest days of December, thank you very much; gives us all an excuse to drink ourselves into oblivion for near-enough two weeks when the world outside is just plain shit. The crap weather is the reason I celebrate Yuletide, anyway. A couple more holidays to even out the solstice / equinox balance wouldn't be a bad thing, but the only thing that stops me going postal when autumn kicks in and I realise that <rant>YET AGAIN we had no fucking summer this year (one day, ONE DAY, <b><i>ONE DAY!</i></b>! I ask you, is a week too much to ask for, a single solitary fucking WEEK!)</rant> is the knowledge that party-time's a-coming. And I can't promise anything once the Festive Season's over and we're into the long, cold misery of January and February. Honestly. King Lear has nothing on me in February. Watch the papers for 'Man Bites Snowdrift' stories.
-- Guy Fox, Oct 12 2001


Yeah, what did they ever do for us anyway?
I reckon we should leave Christmas where (when) it is, but make the weather better. I really wouldn't mind if it were proper winter, like they get in Canada or Sweden, but all we have here is week after week of cold, damp, miserable, depressing, bone-chilling, suicide-inducing *English* winter.
-- angel, Oct 12 2001


Cp: 'The 4th of July' is a holiday in the US, aka 'Independence Day'. Didn't want to say that last, as I didn't want to give anyone memories of that movie.

The point is that xmas crap goes up before the smoke from the fireworks is out of the air...

And where the hell did this 'xmas in July' thing come from, anyway?
-- StarChaser, Oct 13 2001


bone. What would christmas be without a seafood platter on a 38degree (Celsius) day listening to someone sing about the 'white christmas' that they used to know. Waiting for the bushfire season to really kick in and wondering if it'll rain enough next year for water restrictions to be removed.
-- reap, Jan 15 2003



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