Tis The Season

Do you ever hear people ranting about how Christmas has become too commercial? I never grasped that question, because it’s not like there was a time when Christmas wasn’t commercial and we all just sat around pondering the complexities of matching important elements of Christianity to pagan holidays. That never happened. Certainly not in our lifetimes. Instead of complaining and wistfully remembering an era that never was, I prefer to bask in the now. I enjoy the decorations, the songs, the lights, the heavily discounted merchandise. All good stuff. What I don’t enjoy? Grumpy people. (Except Vish, that guy’s cool.)

I know there’s comfort in the familiarity of popular music, but isn’t it surprising that in the last 25 years, the popular music industry couldn’t produce a widely popular Christmas song other than “All I Want For Christmas Is You”? The whole industry bases itself off of creating pale imitations of a few original successes – it’s weird that this whole formula failed for Christmas music. Don’t get me wrong, I like that song a lot, but you would think they could make other ones.

It’s always good times when the ridiculous holiday commercials start airing. Counting down, here are my favorites:

5. JC Penney.

Have you seen this ad?
http://tunesontv.com/2007/11/17/jcpenney-christmasholiday-commercial-songs/
It's pretty elaborate, but the general idea is that a little girl decides she wants to build a rocket and go to space. Somehow, this should make me want to go to JC Penney. So far, I have not had the urge to go shop there. Weird, because the commercial ties to the store so directly.

4. The Lexus “December to Remember” ads.

You’ve seen these, right? Where one rich person gives their also rich spouse a Lexus with a giant red bow on it? There’s a lot that bugs me about these commercials. First, in all likelihood, these people have joint bank accounts. So unless it’s like the 1950s and Lexus believes in “Man sign checks, Woman wash dishes”, you would think that buying a freakin Lexus would need to be a joint decision – after all, you can’t just go back and exchange it. Surprises are for birthday parties, or haircuts. A Lexus feels like a joint decision.

Then there’s the red bow. Seriously? Do people really purchase Lexuses like this? Is it a better gift with the giant bow? Seems like it would be a pain to take off too. My absolute favorite is this one ad where people get this guy “crappy” gifts like a razor, or books, and the narrator says that this Christmas, maybe you should get yourself a gift, and they show this smug asshole walking out to the driveway to admire the new Lexus he bought for himself, again, probably without consulting his wife.

3. All the jewelry ads.

Maybe it’s just me, but there seem to be an incredibly high number of jewelry ads this year. There’s always a lot, but between Kay, Zales, Jared, and some local places, it seems like it’s more than I’ve seen in years past. What I find most ridiculous about these commercials is that evidently it’s not enough to get a woman a diamond necklace – you have to give it with panache. You have to like, construct a poem, or eat a lot of chicken so you can make her pull a wish bone just so you can jump in at the right moment and “wow” her. (The wishbone one is my favorite, by the way – what was the guy going to do if his wife pulled the small bone? Eat another whole piece of chicken and try again? Rich’s favorite is this Zales commercial where kids are having a snowball fight and they all stop because they see the dad has a bag from Zales, prompting the Vanessa Carlton music to start. “Like those kids even know what the fuck ‘Zales’ is.”)

2. Sorry, more jewelry ads.

As ridiculous as the Kay and Zales commercials can be, nothing compares to the Jared commercials. Do these commercials run in your TV markets? Basically these commercials are built around OTHER WOMEN hearing that a guy went to Jared Jewelers, and getting all envious as a result. A typical commercial goes like this:

Woman #1: “Did you hear? Brian went to JARED!”
Woman #2: “He went to JARED?!?!”
Woman #1: “He went to JARED”
Woman #3: “Did I just hear you guys say Brian went to JARED??!?!”
Woman #2: “Yes, he went to JARED”
All 3 Women, simultaneously: “EEeeeeee!!!!!”

At least the Kay and Zales commercials sell the idea that if you get your wife or girlfriend jewelry, she’ll love you more/remember that she loves you. The Jared commercials explicitly go after the angle that buying your wife jewelry will make HER FRIENDS JEALOUS, which in turn is what makes her happy, not that she loves you in any way. The cynical among us might be like, “uhh…well….that’s true, you know?”, and to that I say, touché. But it still seemed like a quantum leap in the jewelry commercial world.

1. Citi Credit Cards.

There’s this absurd ad where a guy, maybe 20 years old, is shopping for his mom’s Christmas gift. He looks for a while, can’t figure what he likes, so ultimately decides to buy HIMSELF a suit, which is apparently the greatest gift mom could ask for. Then he brags that he looks great in his new suit. In the future, this is going to be my move whenever someone asks why I didn’t get them a gift. “Oh, I’m sorry – but you know what I did do, I bought myself a big steak dinner! It was delicious!” Also, in order for the commercial to make sense visually, the guy doesn’t take the tag off his suit (so we know that’s what he bought with his Citi credit card), and just looks like a complete moron wearing a suit with a tag on it. As a last comment, how all of this advertises effectively for Citi credit cards is highly, highly dubious.