Please Stop Ruining The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

I wrote this post a little over a week ago and I wasn't going to post it because I thought it was a little too snarky for the Holidays, but this morning all I have seen on TV is all of these stupid Christmas commercials.  And since this post was basically done, I figured I'd go ahead and share it with you all. 

Do me a favor and go ahead and click the flashing thing over there that says "Vote For Me On Top Mommy Blogs."  All you have to do is click on it and your vote is cast.  I have given up on winning any of the Blogger's Choice Awards that I was nominated for, but I'd love to get back into the Top 25 on Top Mommy Blogs for Christmas! 

I hope that each and everyone of you has a blessed and Merry Christmas, and I hope that you have enjoyed my ranting and raving and complaining this year.  I promise that there will be more to come in 2012!!

I love Christmas.  It is my absolute favorite time of the year.  I love everything about the holidays -- I love buying presents, I love decorating the tree (usually at my mom's house), I love the food, the family -- all of it.  I love to listen to my Christmas CD's while I bask in the glow of the artificial lights on my tree.  There is nothing better than Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald belting out the beautiful songs of the season -- it makes me happy.

You know what DOESN'T make me happy?  Stupid commercials that ruin my favorite Christmas music.  This year's biggest offender is Verizon.  I swear if I hear their "Walkin' in a 4G Wonderland" commercial one more time I might have to throat punch a pink haired elf.  And is it just me?  Or does that song sound an awful lot like they are singing about some magical land of debauchery -- "An Orgy Wonderland?"  Why must companies do this?  I picture some really bad boardroom back in July where a bunch of corporate sellouts sit around thinking up ways to ruin Christmas songs by changing the lyrics to fit their products.  I get the idea -- I have a degree in marketing -- they want consumers to see and hear their commercials and recognize the song and have it drilled into your subconscious so that when you sing the song to yourself you automatically revert to their horrible lyrics. But it doesn't make me want to buy their products.  It makes me all stabby feeling.

I do recall, however, one instance where this worked.  Garmin did a commercial featuring "The Carol of The Bells" and let's face it, no one outside of a choir knows the real lyrics to that song anyway.  And I still can't hear that song without singing "Gotta, gotta, get a Garmin" instead of "Merry, merry, merry Christmas" at the end.

But it isn't just the music.  The car commercials just kill me.  One of my Facebook friends posted something about the Lexus ads that really struck a chord with me:  "Ok really, who buys their spouse a $50,000.00 car for X-mas. Hey honey I went and bought you a Lexus for X-mas and the first $1,100 payment is due in 2 weeks. Go ahead and budget that in."  All I could think was "For real!"  I hate car commercials like that with the big red bow on the roof of the car -- who does that?  No one that I know.  At least the people over at Honda recognize the downturn in the economy -- their Christmas commercial is about buying "A Honda Certified USED Car."  Riiiiiight....Because I can afford to spend $15-20K on Christmas for ONE person.  I spent about $500 TOTAL on Christmas this year for EVERYONE and that was excessive and will require me to forgo any trips to Sonic or Starbucks for the next few months.


The Toys R Us Ads about "The lowest prices of the season!" every freakin' weekend make me think that the prices will go continually lower until the last weekend of the season before the New Year's ads start with all of their new markdowns. And their "2-Day Sale" ads make me and my kids hear "Tooting Sale" causing hours of fart jokes from the 10-year old and snorts of laughter from the 3 year old. Yaaaaaaaaaay.

And I swear on all that is Christmas if I have to hear one more exclamation that "He went to Jared" I am going to lose my mind.  No one I know went to Jared.  They went to Target, or Wal-Mart, or Amazon.  And after all of their annoying commercials about the guys who went to Jared and the female GPS that FORCES the driver to go to Jared (all I can think of is the movie "Christine" when I see that crap), if my husband ever went to Jared I'd be pissed.


Then there are the commercials that try to pull on your heartstrings and make you feel all sentimental and mushy. I'll admit, there have been Hallmark commercials that make me reach for the Kleenex, but there are many of them that fall horribly short. The ones with Dr. Quinn and her "If you leave your heart open, love can always find its way in" diamond pendants make me want to slap her in her big cheesy grinning mouth. And since we are talking about jewelry, let me address the biggest marketing scam of all time -- Chocolate Diamonds. Really, ANY colored diamonds. Diamonds, for millennia, have been graded on their purity and their clarity. So when a diamond was dark or dingy it was crap. Well, kudos to the marketing genius that came up with the whole colored diamond scam. And chocolate diamonds are so far away from diamonds that they are basically shiny rocks. No offense to you if you happen to like shiny rocks, I just don't like them or the fact that they call them diamonds.


No company is immune -- Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Kohl's, Macy's, Sears, Penney's, etc.  They ALL have obnoxious sales touting the "Lowest prices of the year on top name brands!"  There are BOGO sales, door buster sales, midnight madness sales, and cyber sales.  There are coupons in your Sunday paper for extra discounts on top of the sales and if you sign up for their store credit card there are even MORE sales.  After all that, you'd think there would be some free crap (There's not, by the way.  I checked.)

The truth is, nothing kills my Christmas spirit and brings out my inner snark more than the Christmas commercials.  Christmas is commercial enough without having advertisers whore it up for us.    I am extremely thankful for my DVR which allows me to bypass all of the commercials because all of the ads make me a Scrooge.