The return of the festive cliches!

Around this time last year I wrote the following post:

Don’t you just love those festive cliches?



It’d be such an interesting exercise to count how many times we hear “Christmas Has Come Early” or some derivative in the early part of December.



Someone gets a pay rise and the media say, “workers got an early Christmas gift today when ….”.



Advertisers continue to do the “Christmas has come early at Bob’s BBQs where you can …..”



Listen out for it and you’ll hear it several times a day.



What Christmas cliches annoy you?

I was reminded of this post while watching TV news and hearing that, “home owners have been given an early Christmas gift with interest rates set to stay where they are …. “ or some similar wording.

So tell me again, which Christmas cliches annoy you?

Posted by Rodney Olsen



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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8 Comments

  • It’s especially annoying when you hear the tv newscasters saying stuff like “It won’t be a merry christmas for Ted since his house burned to the ground.” How do they know. Maybe Ted didn’t like that house and is happy to get the insurance money and start in a NEW house!

  • “Love the sinner…hate the sin”.

    “God made Adam and Eve…not Adam and Steve”.

    “Awesome”.

    “A fishing trip/boating trip/walk around to the deli/dream holiday – has turned to tragedy”

    “this offering is only for our regulars…if you’re a visitor…please let the bag pass….this service is our gift to you (but once in you’re in the pharisee club we’ll use all kinds of emotional and scriptural manipulation to screw you for all we can get”)

    Be “on fire” for God.

  • Hey Lance – if we’re going for ‘spiritual’ cliches, what about stuff like “moving powerfully in the spirit” or “moves in the prophetic” or “a mighty annointing”?

    What kind of language is that? Who can really define what those kind of phrases mean? Do the people they’re aimed at really know what they’re saying?

  • Or God is ‘really here’ tonight?

    I mean…what is that?

    When the building is locked up and empty and dark and quiet……God isn’t really there?

  • Not really a Christmas one, but one I loathe probably more than any other, is the phrase “brave little” whenever a child has an illness, or has had his/her toys stolen by ruffians, or has his/her house burnt down, or … whatever. No matter the story, I’m immediately set against this child when I hear “brave little” Tiffany or Troyor whoever and feel compelled to rejoice at her or his misfortune. Bad of me, I know, but Channel 9 news just gets me that way. Grrr … (shuffles off back into corner grumbling inarticulately.)

  • … and here we were thinking it was Elvis who had left the building. “God is really here tonight and when we’re finished we’ll ask him to turn the lights off and lock up the building before he leaves.”

    Hey John – I almost gagged just reading your “brave little” comment. You’re so right. If Troy or Tiffany were really so brave they might take a swipe at the reporter for being so darn condescending.

  • Not so much Christmas cliches, but the seasonal inappropriateness of so many Christmas images in Australia. It’s summer in Oz, yet here we have images of snow, and sleighs (cannot say I have ever seen a sleigh), roast dinners, and a jolly fat fellow in warm red suit, etc, etc.

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