Last year, in this thread, I posted about the blatant commercialization of Christmas and how early they started advertising for it.
It’s that time of the year again. The time of year when the trees still all have their leaves. I can go outside in a short-sleeved shirt and feel the warm sun beating on my face while I play with my kids in my freshly mowed lawn and enjoy the last days of summer… and watch commercials advertising for Christmas! I don’t fucking believe it. There should be a law or something outlawing this assenine capitalization of wonderful and sacred time.
I’m just so infuriated by this that I can’t even type out a decent rant here. Are people so wrapped up on making a buck? I hear people every year complain about the “real” meaning of Christmas is slowly being lost. Well, get these racoon colon licking fuckers to stop advertising for it in September and October. Anything more than 5 or 6 weeks of Christmas ads is more than enough for anybody.
Are they doing this because shoppers want them to, or do shoppers think they want it because it has been done for so long? A whole twist on the chicken and egg.
Same goes with next year car models… also I received in the mail today a November issue of a magazine.
Hear, hear! It seems like every year, Christmas starts getting advertised earlier and earlier. Everything is early. I was seeing those mondo bags of “Halloween candy” on sale practically the first week of September. It seems like retailers jump from Halloween to Christmas. Where’s Thanksgiving? When I was a kid (I hate saying that), I remember the stores gave Thanksgiving some time too.
Personally, I think that the playing of holiday music should NOT be allowed until December 1st.I get annoyed when you start hearing Christmas music the last week of October, and the crap gets played out of it, so that when Christmas time actually rolls around, I’m SICK of hearing it. And the song “Jingle Bells” needs to be outlawed, for a couple decades at least.
Penalty for playing Christmas music early: flogging with a wet tinsel garland.
Penalty for playing “Jingle Bells”: being forced to listen to the all-dogs version of it, or Burl Ives singing “Holly Jolly Christmas”, whichever the person hates more, for 72 hours straight. (Personally I don’t have a problem with either of those but I imagine some might)
Who’s with me on this?
As well with Jingle Bell Rock, my absolute least favorite of all Christmas songs.
I still don’t think I will ever get sick of Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.
And yet they never play the ones I like - “Still, Still, Still,” or “You’re All I Want For Christmas.”
Plus this’ll be the first year I’m not home over Thanksgiving weekend when Mom breaks out Johnny Mathis’ Christmas album, gets the decorations out of the attic and starts baking cookies.
Suddenly I feel the need to sing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas…”
I suspect we won’t be hearing Weird Al’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” this year.
I suspect Christmas this year, and Hanukkah, too, will be a lot more serious and meaningful for a lot of people. Less emphasis on presents, more on love and family.
I haven’t seen the Christmas-flavored commercials yet, but Sears has their Christmas crap out already. Trees, ornaments, dancing Santa, lights…this was over the weekend. It wasn’t even October yet!
**
I love “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Vince Vance & The Valiants. Is that the one you like?
Long, mushy story behind that one. Maybe I’ll tell it one day.
Shhh!
[sub]We always get our tree out the day after Thanksgiving.[/sub]
What gets me is that I’ve never met a single person who likes this. The stores insist that they do it because people want this, yet I’ve never met anyone who wanted it.
Jeez, Dragwyr, if I’d known ranting about Premature Onset Christmas was standard on this board, I’d’ve written your rant back on September 8. Because that was the first day I saw Christmas stuff - ornaments and lights and so forth - up in a regular store. (A Sav-On.) 'Round here, they go straight from Back-to-School to Christmas, expanding Christmas to about fifteen aisles as soon as Halloween is out of the way.
I hate it.
When I saw the Little Dorky-but-Expensive Christmas Village Decorations in the drugstore, I recoiled in horror. Literally. I went “eeep!” and backed right into another shopper. She gave me a strange look, and I wanted to say: “Look, it’s sick enough that we live in a part of the country where there are three seasons: January, Summer, and Christmas. It’s sick enough that there are retailers who are apparently counting the days until Labor Day comes and they can put out the green and red wrapping paper. But when completely normal people accept this, and are not even alarmed, and in fact don’t understand why a fellow human being might be alarmed to find Christmas products lying in wait when she goes to pick up her prescription on September 8, well, screw religion. We’re already in hell.”
I did not say this, however, because my mouth went on strike to protest the earlification of Christmas. Damn.
Well, I’m not going to stand for it anymore; this rant has just pushed me over the edge. All that is required for the triumph of Christmas is that good people do nothing about it COMING IN FUCKING SEPTEMBER. I will be silent no longer. Fetch me the permanent black marker, the black spray paint, and the napalm - the Anti-Santa is coming to town.
I think it’s great that the most wonderful time of the year can last for four months now! Hey, if I start now, maybe I can get all my Christmas cards out before that nasty Halloween rush.
