Holiday Greed

There are several types of commercials before and after the Holidays that speak to the true underlying spirit of Christmas in our society; what's in it for me? Yep, we get all these car commercials that have people leaving pictures of cars around, or the latest Cadillac commercials where you have a guy in the car bitching that "Dad gets the ambiguous Sweater Vest for Christmas...this year Dad took the reins in his own hand and got himself a Cadillac." Then there's the one with the woman driving an Escalade bitching about the Christmas Presents she's gotten from her husband in the past...then she says "So this year we came to an understanding and Jack let me pick out my own gift and I got a Cadillac." Nice. So this is a picture of American life. First we have the ungrateful Dad. They picture the man as older, so you assume he has older kids and Grandkids. Nice...what does he do make it obvious the gifts he receives suck? Probably. Then we have the Shrew......or the dumb ass that married someone just for his money because obviously this guy doesn't know his Wife at all.....or doesn't care. So basically she got her husband to buy her a car for Christmas. Who the Hell does this? Who buys someone a Car for Christmas? Disgustingly wealthy people possibly. Or you are overloaded with Jewelry ads.....yeah in our sucky economy, instead of buying lots of heartfelt presents for your family, you blow the whole wad on some crappy diamond pendant at Zales or Kays because you are not a man unless you buy your Woman diamonds. STFU...please. We've all gotten that gift that absolutely sucked.....some people just don't have an idea what to get someone (here's a hint....Gift Certificates are always a good idea....make it a generic one....Visa, Master Card and Amex all have Gift Certs that can be used anywhere.....). Even though it sucks, you are supposed to be genuinely thankful. The spirit of the thing is someone was thoughtful enough to get you something for Christmas....they didn't have to you know.....so you shouldn't make them feel bad by showing a true reaction to the gift. One of our PM's here at work gave me a gift as a way of thanking me for all my help. I didn't open it until I got in the car, but was genuinely thankful. It was a wallet and key chain set. Nice stuff, but the wallet didn't have enought slots, etc for all the crap that is currently in my wallet and the key chain didn't hold all of my keys. It's okay though, it was the thought that counted. Someone took some of their hard earned cash and went and got me a gift. They included me in their Holiday Shopping and it was a heartful genuine way of thanking me for my assitance this past year. That is the true spirit of the gift, not the gift itself. I honestly have more fun watchin Liv open her gifts from us than I do receiving gifts. She was real happy with everything we got her and had a huge smile on her face. That was worth it to me.

The other commericals I hate are the one's that come after the Holiday. The "hey you got some crappy ass gifts...come and return them and get what you really wanted." Yeah you greedy, ungrateful bastard, return all the gifts that people thought you might like so you can placate your whiny ass, me me me, attitude. It truly sickens me when I see these ads.