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A powerful case for why we should only celebrate Christmas every other year.

A friend of mine quit drinking a few years back and I asked him why. “When life is always a party, it’s never a party,” he said. That’s how I feel about Christmas.

When it’s always Christmas, it’s never Christmas.

But before you brand me as a bitter “bah humbug” type, let me explain. I love Christmas and I think I know how to make it even better.

For reasons mostly having to do with commerce, the Christmas season has been arriving earlier each year.

Cardboard cutouts of Santa hawking holiday trinkets are now appearing next to back-to-school displays in early September.

According to NerdWallet, 20% of Americans start Christmas shopping in the final weeks of summer and that number doubles even before Halloween.

“Forty percent have started Christmas shopping before Halloween,” Bernacchi University of Detroit-Mercy marketing professor Mike Bernacchi explained to WWJ News Radio. “The pumpkins haven't even gone away yet and Christmas shopping — I mean, 40 percent? That’s just unbelievable.”

It’s simple math: the longer the season, the more you will spend. And we’re doing a fantastic job of obeying our retail masters.

While some look at premature Christmasing with skepticism, others are praising the trend, claiming it gives low-income people a chance to spread out their holiday spending.

But maybe the Christmas industrial complex shouldn’t be pressuring people to overextend themselves in the first place?

Studies show that the average American racked up about $1,000 in holiday debt debt in 2016, and many were still paying it off by Christmas 2017.

Christmas is such an all-pervasive part of American culture that goes on for so long, its magic has been diminished.

When Christmas music is on the radio from November 1 to January 15, it starts to become audio wallpaper.

When “Home Alone” is constantly on television for three months straight, watching Joe Pesci get hit in the nuts feels a little less triumphant.

The pressure to spend seems to intensify every year.

The days of aggressive Black Friday marketing seem quaint now that we get hit again three days later with Cyber Monday.

No one should blame you if you feel like Christmas feels a lot more like an obligation than a celebration.

We should celebrate Christmas every other year.

Imagine, if when the Christmas hullabaloo dies down in the early days 2019, it wouldn't come around until 2020?

There would be an entire year with no Christmas music, no holiday tearjerkers on the Hallmark Channel, and no viral videos of people getting cold cocked in a Walmart while trying to buy a $9 toaster.

None of it. Winter would come and go in peace.

One of the greatest joys of Christmas when I was a kid was waiting for it to happen. For a seven year old, the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas felt like three years.

Let's bring that back.

Anticipation is such a powerful emotion that Americans will actually watch curling once every four years in the Winter Olympics. Not because watching the athletic equivalent of some guy plowing his driveway is exciting, but because it's a rare occurrence.

The same goes for the McRib. It tastes like boiled egg cartons topped with ketchup, but the novelty keeps bringing us back.

Imagine if you actually had to wait for Christmas season to arrive instead of saying, “Wow. It’s Christmas time already? Time flies.”

But what about Jesus?

Every-other-year Christmas would be fantastic for Christians who want to remind people of the real reason for the season. On non-Christmas years, Christians could take that time to focus on the birth of their lord and savior without all of distraction caused by crass commercialism and secular traditions.

They could call it Jesus’s Birthday!

When the entire block isn’t flooded with Christmas lights, your big ass manger scene will finally get the attention its due.

Economically, people would be in a better place as well. Sure, consumer spending would plummet towards the end of the year, but the average person would be carrying around a lot less debt.

So what will we do on December 25?

For generations, Jewish people have celebrated December 25 by eating Chinese food and watching a movie. This seems like a pretty damn good way to celebrate non-Christmas.

Although it would suck for Jewish people. What was once a quiet dinner with the family at Changs would be ruined by a flock of ravenous gentiles overloading on kung pao chicken.

#StopChristmas2019

Some people who are reading this may say I’m part of the never-ending war on Christmas, and label me a blasphemer or communist. But I bet there are a lot of people out there who agree and are afraid to address the topic with their friends, families or coworkers.

So, let’s start a movement online. Because it’s a lot easier and less time consuming than taking it to the streets.

If you agree that Christmas should be every other year, jump out of the Christmas closet and share your support on social media at #StopChristmas2019.

Do it for yourself. Do it for your America. Do it for Christmas.

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Science

What will Earth look like if all its land ice melts? These maps show the clear answer.

Climate change isn't pretty.

via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

A map of the United States post land-ice melt.

Land ice: We got a lot of it. Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined ... yeah, we're talkin' a lot of ice. But what if it was all just ... gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

If all of earth's land ice melted, it would be nothing short of disastrous. And that's putting it lightly. This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn't great. Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.

I bring up the topic not just for funsies, of course, but because the maps are real possibilities.

How? Climate change.

As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.

A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don't change our ways, there's definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.


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In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.



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Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.



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South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.


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And in the U.S., we'd watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.


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All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic's estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth's land ice melted into our oceans.

There's even a tool where you can take a detailed look at how your community could be affected by rising seas, for better or worse.

Although ... looking at these maps, it's hard to imagine "for better" is a likely outcome for many of us.

Much of America's most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you'll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.

Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)



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Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)


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And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)

"This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come," said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

If we want to stop this from happening," she says, "we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground."

The good news? Most of our coastlines are still intact! And they can stay that way, too — if we act now.

World leaders are finallystarting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.

Check out Business Insider's video below:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com


This article originally appeared eleven years ago.

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Pop Culture

People agree these 19 things are weirdly romanticized, but are actually huge red flags

"The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

Photo credit: Canva

One person's romantic is another person's cringe.

We all love a good love story. The grand gestures, the unbridled spontaneity, and those "against all odds” moments that give relationships a dose of movie magic are everything. But, sometimes, the things we’ve been taught to swoon over—whether that be due to pop culture or more overarching societal trends—are actually pretty toxic when you stop to think about them.

Recently, someone asked folks to share their own examples of behaviors that are “weirdly romanticized” but are actually major red flags once you look past the glossy surface, and honestly, it’s eye-opening.

Here are some of the most surprising (and perhaps unsettling) examples they shared. One major category belonged to those tropes we see in many, many television shows, movies, and even songs…

1. "Having someone who is completely obsessed with you."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia1.giphy.com

2. "Enemies to lovers. It's cute in theory, but how can you be with someone when you know all the disgusting things they've said about you before your relationship?"

3. "I used to love the 'asshole-to-everyone-except-you' trope until he started being an asshole to my friends. Some tropes are meant to stay fictional."

4. "The 'I'm just a girl' trend and other TikTok trends that are used to deflect any accountability or responsibility as an adult human being."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia4.giphy.com

5. "The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

6. "Pressuring someone to hurry up and put a ring on it."

Two people brought differing, yet equally important views on work/love life balance.

7. "Sacrificing your professional or personal life to pursue someone."

8. "Honestly, I think we conflate hard work with unhealthy boundaries between the self and career, and we romanticize working overtime, long shifts, and doing excessive tasks as a display of personal growth. We've manipulated ourselves into feeling that giving our time to pursue our work is noble. I'm saying this as a student in medicine, where hours are absolutely wild. I know I'll work my hardest, but I won't sacrifice my sense of self and my time to eke out my own passions and life just to get ahead in my career track. At least, I hope I don't lose sight of myself in the pursuit of following my dreams. It can be really hard not to notice that that's where you're headed until you've already sacrificed so much."

How folks handle—or don’t handle—conflict also was a major red flag.

9. "Not being confrontational. Needless confrontation is bad, but sometimes, you do need to confront someone."

10. "Fighting all the time. No, it doesn't mean that your relationship is 'passionate.' It means that you're probably incompatible and shouldn't be together."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia.giphy.com

Finally, this category belongs to things that many people think often carry a hidden warning, even if they seem workable, even harmless, at first.

11. "I knew a girl whose boyfriend went everywhere with her. He wouldn't let her go anywhere if he weren't there, and she thought it was cute how 'possessive' he was over her. It thoroughly icked me out when she told me. Like, that is not healthy at all."

12. "Being a 'free spirit.' Like, there's a gray area, but there's a time and place to be inhibited and misbehave. Not following rules in public settings because you're 'free' gets old really fast."

13. "Being the charismatic 'heavy drinker' in friend groups. Goes for men and women."

14. "When people say things like, 'He's just broken,' as if it's something romantic. Having pain doesn't justify cruelty, and loving someone shouldn't mean bleeding just to make them feel whole."

15. "People who brag about not being interested in reading or learning. Here in the US, there is a huge anti-curiosity or anti-intellect movement, and people will literally brag about being ignorant."

16. "Being over controlling. My coworker thinks it's adorable when they say stuff like, 'My husband would kill me if I got a tattoo there!' Gross. Sorry that your husband is so fragile."

17. "People who constantly post about their partner. It's not romantic, it's performative. Real love doesn't need a PR campaign."

18. "'Traditional values.'"

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia3.giphy.com

Lastly, perhaps the oldest red flag in the book…

19. "The idea that playing games or being 'hard to get' in a cruel way will make their crush or interest want them more."

Note the one gesture that no one mentioned as un-romantic: flowers. Just sayin'.

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Science

8th grader's award-winning experiment tested if dogs' tongues are really cleaner than ours

Here's what science says about letting your dog lick your face.

Photo credit: Canva

Should you let a dog lick your face?

With nearly half of the households in American having at least one dog, there's a lot people need to know about them. Our furry friends come in wide variety of breeds, each with their own unique traits and needs. "Man's best friend" can be a guardian, a helpful worker, a loyal friend, and a snuggly companion, but there's one thing almost all dogs have in common: Licking.

Some dogs lick way more than others, but it's rare to find a dog who never licks anyone or anything. Many dogs communicate and show affection by licking, which is sweet—if a little gross—depending on how slobbery they are. There's a common saying that dogs' mouths are cleaner than humans', which is a bit hard to believe when you see what some dogs put in their mouths, but it is true? What does science say about dog tongues and saliva? Is a dog licking our face something we should worry about?

dogs, dog mouths clean, dog tongues, dog licking, should you let a dog lick your facePooch smooches are sweet if they're not too slobbery.Photo credit: Canva

It turns out, the answer to whether a dog's mouth is cleaner than ours isn't super straightforward.

An 8th grader named Abby tackled this question in a science experiment that won her a Young Naturalists Award from the American Museum of Natural History in 2011. Her family had gotten a dog and her mom kept telling her not to let the dog lick her face because dog mouths are full of bacteria. Instead of arguing, Abby decided to find out herself if this was true.

"I hypothesized that human tongues would be cleaner than dog tongues," she wrote. "I thought this because humans brush their teeth at least once a day. I hypothesized that dogs' tongues would be dirty because they were always licking dirty things like garbage."

After diving into the research about bacteria that live in and on humans and dogs, Abby decided she had a testable hypothesis. But this wasn't any old middle school science experiment. She applied for and got a grant to the State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa, where she was assigned a mentor to work with her.

You can read the nitty gritty details of her experiment here, but here was her conclusion:

dogs, dog mouths clean, dog tongues, dog licking, should you let a dog lick your faceMany dogs will lick you if you give them the chance. Photo credit: Canva

"I concluded that dog and human mouth flora are very different. (Flora means the bacteria found in a mouth or anywhere else.) The bacteria found in human mouths are more similar to another human's oral bacteria than the bacteria found in a dog's mouth.

I also concluded that dogs' mouths are cleaner than humans' in some ways, and dirtier in other ways. Humans have more bacteria in their mouths than dogs do, based on the total number of bacteria. Most of the humans had a 'moderate' number of bacteria, and most of the dogs had 'few' bacteria. A possible explanation of this might be that dogs pant a lot, and maybe while panting, bacteria falls off their tongues along with their saliva. But dogs had more types of bacteria. The average number of different bacterial colonies in a dog's mouth was about 5.7. The average number of different bacterial colonies in a human's mouth was about 4.1. I think this is so because dogs sniff and lick a variety of things, like carpets, floors, chairs, grass, etc., so they pick up bacteria from many places."

But what about the licking of our faces? That's a bit of a subjective call, but Abby's results gave her some peace of mind:

"In conclusion, will I let my dog continue to lick me? The answer to the question is yes!" she wrote. "I will feel guiltless about letting my dog lick me because I found out that human and dog oral bacteria are different, so my dog's oral bacteria present no harm to me."

lick, licking, face, dogs, dogpuppy love kiss GIF by Pickler & BenGiphy

What do the experts say?

According to Colin Harvey, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine and executive secretary at the American Veterinary Dental College, comparing dogs' mouths to humans' mouth is "like comparing apples to oranges." As Abby found, the microbes in a dog's mouth are very different than those in a human's.

The American Kennel Club elaborates:

"Most of the bacteria in your dog’s mouth aren’t zoonotic, which means you probably won’t get a disease from a big old doggy kiss. There are exceptions to this. Dogs that eat a raw diet are at an increased risk of contracting salmonella, which can be spread to humans. You also probably shouldn’t share kisses with a dog that regularly raids the litter box.

In other words, kissing your dog is less risky than kissing another human, but that doesn’t mean that your dog’s mouth is necessarily cleaner than a human’s—they just have a mostly incompatible set of germs."

dogs, dog mouths, dog kisses, dog teeth cleaningKeep your dog's mouth clean with regular teeth brushing.Photo credit: Canva

Keeping your dog's mouth healthy through regular teeth cleaning and dental check-ups can also help prevent issues that could potentially come from dog licks.

So there you have it. If your dog doesn't eat a raw diet and doesn't go snacking in the cat box (or some other equally fecal-bacteria-ridden place), their kisses are probably not going to hurt you. Guilt-free pooch smooches for the win!

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Parenting

Teacher shares the one thing parents need to teach kids to prepare them for kindergarten

Kindergarten teacher Emily Perkins says avoiding this can make them "unteachable."

Image via Canva

Kindergarten teacher shares #1 thing parents should teach kids.

Sending your kid to kindergarten for the first time is a milestone parenting moment. For parents looking to prepare their kids for attending school for the first time, kindergarten teacher Emily Perkins (@emmymckenny) from Kentucky has spilled her wisdom.

In a new TikTok video, Perkins shared the number one thing parents should be teaching their kids before sending them to her classroom—and it's slightly controversial.

"No. No no no. No," she captioned the video. In it, she explains that parents need to teach their children the meaning of 'no,' and telling them 'no' when necessary.

@emmymckenny

No. No no no. No. #teachersoftiktok #momsoftiktok #gentleparenting #controversial

She says in the video, "A lot of people ask me all the time when they figure out that I’m a kindergarten teacher: What can they do to prepare their kid for kindergarten? What can I do—help them open their snacks? Help them tie their shoes? No, no, no, not that. Tell your kid, 'No' ... Tell them ‘No’ as a complete sentence."

The mom of two continues to add that if parents fail to tell and teach their kids "no," it can make them "unteachable" once they get in her classroom. "Do not teach them that telling them, 'No' invites them to argue with you, because if I can’t tell your child 'No' as an adult, and they don’t respect the 'No,' they’re basically unteachable. Let me tell you something: I will open their snacks, I will tie their shoes, I will help them blow their nose, I will teach them how to wash their hands properly."

@emmymckenny

I went viral #teachersoftiktok #viral #no


Perkins does not mince words when explaining the importance of teaching kids "no," and takes a stand against gentle parenting that she argues has turned many parents into pushovers. "The term gentle parenting gets thrown around like a reward—'Congratulations, you’re a pushover.' You can validate your child’s feelings without being a pushover. I heard a parent tell me that they don’t tell their child, 'No' because it triggers them," she explains.

Perkins adds that if parents cannot tell their children "no," neither can teachers—which can lead to disaster in kindergarten. "And if your child’s teacher can’t tell them, 'No,' it’s really hard to help them learn," she concluded.

@emmymckenny

IDC #teachersoftiktok #controversy #thingsidontcareabout

In an interview withTODAY, Perkins shared that "'No’ is not a bad word," and added that “‘no’ is not an invitation to an argument." She added, "My whole job is explaining. Think of logistics—if we’re lining up for a fire drill, it’s, 'No, you may not stay inside if the building is on fire' or 'No, you may not climb on the table because it’s not safe.'"

While she notes that further explanation of "no" to kids is certainly important, it's more crucial for kids to not to question or argue right away if they are told, "No." "I love to explain why, but if I can’t right then, kids still have to hear and accept 'no,'" she told the publication.

Perkins' video got a lot of support from fellow teachers and parents in the comment section:

"Preschool teacher here. you are 10000000000% correct. Let them struggle a bit so they can ACTUALLY do hard things. Let them experience disappointment! make them resilient!" one wrote.

"THIS!! I’m a first year kindergarten teacher and some of this littles just don’t get no… it’s so wild to me."

A parent viewer wrote, "True gentle parenting is about telling your child no and sticking to it. If you can never tell your child no it’s permissive."

And another parent shared, "Not a teacher just a mom, but YES. Not everything needs to be a lesson…sometimes because I said so is a complete sentence."

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Community

Young man becomes 'neighborhood dad' to group of boys after putting in time playing football with them

"As soon as he gets off work, the kids come knocking 😂."

@its.ambreaaa/TikTok

Young man spends free time playing flag football with neighborhood kids.

There are few things sweeter than growing up in a neighborhood with a tight-knit group of kids who love playing together. And for one lucky neighborhood in Tampa Bay, Florida, a group of boys has been blessed with an attentive young man who has become a 'neighborhood dad', rallying around them and creating a community through flag football in his free time.

TikToker Ambrea Morgan (@its.ambreaa) shared a sweet video of her partner, aka 'neighborhood dad,' answering their door to his crew of adoring neighborhood boys and their son. As she opens it, the camera pans to a total of six boys standing there (with football in hand) who are eagerly waiting for him to come outside and play flag football with them.

"As soon as he gets off work, the kids come knocking 😂," she captioned the video.

@its.ambreaa

As soon as he get off from work the kids come knocking 😂 . . . . . . . . . . #neighbors #neighborhood #Dad #fyp #fy #fypシ #

In the video, they joke around as they wait for him to finally come to the door, and the couple's son tells his Pops to "wake up." It's clear this is a regular thing: the boys wait for him, and when he greets them they share that they've already done their warm-ups (a run to the stop sign and some stretching), and are ready to play.

But because he hasn't seen them warm up, he makes them do it all over again. "You got to do it again cuz I didn't see it!" he says, and the boys all groan and laugh as they start to run downstairs. He follows them and their joy is clearly contagious.

@its.ambreaa

Replying to @Free 😂😂😂 He’s slowing creating the 2038 NFL DRAFT 😭

The touching video resonated with viewers who commended this "neighborhood dad' on his selflessness with the boys.

"Whole time he is single handedly changing the trajectory of these boys lives. He’s doing great work❤️," one wrote.

"omg they’re literally going to remember him forever 😭❤️so sweet."

"I pray they keep this innocence! The way they all ran off to do it again with such annoyance yet so much joy. ☺️"

"The way I let this play, repeatedly! Their joy, their laughs, their little faces! Thank your man for being the village 💕"

@its.ambreaa

Replying to @Kimmy NFL draft in the making 😭😭

Morgan created an Amazon Wishlist and GoFundMe to help further the kids' skills and experience in the neighborhood, where she also shared more about her partner's role: "Watching him out there simply doing what he genuinely loves by pouring into these young boys through football, mentorship, and community and seeing how it touched so many of you has been truly humbling," she wrote on the GoFundMe page. "What started as just a few afternoon games has blossomed into something so much bigger, and it’s clear these boys have found not just a coach, but a real village that believes in them."

The new goal is to start a little league football team, and she notes that the team is now seven boys and growing. "Thank you again for believing in us, believing in these boys, and showing what real community looks like," she added.

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