It's gusting windy with rain and quite cold outside. We are all happily inside, but the kids, being outdoors types, all want to go outside when the rain stops. It's still up in the air if we want to whimsically decide to drive out and for a semi-random place to eat Christmas dinner at. There's actually quite a few places open each Christmas, so one doesn't have to be limited to the restaurants at the posh hotels or specialty tourist spots downtown.
Money and corruption are two different things you know? Also, even though Christmas is an extremely commercial holiday, there is still more to it than that.
For some of us in the bakabt forums, money and corruption are two different things. It is clear from some posts in other threads, unbridled chasing after money is all that matters. In my area, christmas music started up in october in one store until at least one complaint in their suggestion box (mine at least) got them to stop and do it after halloween.
The fact that every year you have a date where you always meet with your family is important in itself don't you think.
If you mean family as in our whole family, we almost always eat dinner together at the same table, despite both parents working, and both kids busy with the freedom of being kids which their parents' well-paying jobs have given them. And for spending time together, ha, ha, while I am the oldest, I still like to play games with the kids as well as watch anime which sometimes causes wifey to get on my case about being the most immature one in the family.
If you mean traveling to be with the extended family, we all agreed that we don't need to do that on holidays because that is much more artificial a reason to visit than traveling at other better times of the year when we can have a nicer longer time and without the extra-long holiday wait at security AND the stupid "your christmas present cannot go thru security, sorry sir" talk which forced it to be thrown away because we cannot leave the line (miss the flight) to find a kinko/fedex to mail it home. So, we do visit others from time to time when my wife and I can get long-enough vacation breaks.