I was at the grocery store the other day when I heard it. It didn't register right away. I don't normally actually listen to what they're playing over the speakers (unless it's the GoGo's in which case I sing along and dance with my shopping cart).
Maybe it was turned up just a touch louder than usual because halfway down the second aisle, it hit me. Fucking Christmas music.
I have a love/hate relationship with holiday music. Part of me gets the appropriate warm and fuzzy feelings when I hear it. The other part of me, the cynical and angry part, usually beats all that sentimentality into an unrecognizable bloody stump.
I stopped and listened for a moment. How could I even start to think about Christmas when it wasn't even cold enough for socks? I know they have to start bombarding consumers with Christmas shit early in order to convince us to buy shit. After all, nothing says "I love you" like a six page long January credit card bill, right?
It's not just the stores with their music and decorations either. I've noticed the toy commercials are on double time. Every four seconds (as opposed to the usual eight seconds) I hear, "Mama! Can I have that?" "Mama, can Santa bring that?".
At first, I pulled out the speech from last year, "Santa can't bring everything. Let's just put it on the list and see what happens."
But I'm sick of saying it, mostly because they don't even hear me when I do. I've given up. Now, when they ask me for yet another bullshit piece of lead-laden garbage almost guaranteed to make noise/be difficult to assemble/fall apart after 5 minutes/etc, I just tell them that they can have it.
Why not?
How could it possibly backfire?
3 comments:
I think it's a good strategy. Surely they won't remember every single thing that they were momentarily infatuated with. Even if they had their heart set on one particular toy that doesn't show up, they're still getting 50 other toys & will likely forget all about that one must-have thing.
I played Santa (I was pretty skinny and was sweating my ass off in all that padding) for a party at a Boys and Girls Club a few years ago. The kids were coached to ask for one thing that they wanted (and probably were already getting) and I was told to grant any reasonable request and send them on their way.
This worked great until a few kids got greedy and asked for cash and elaborate gifts. I was getting kind of turned off when one little girl asked me to get her mommy a new job so they could buy a house. I got a little misty with that one and didn't know what to say except that I'd try.
I started a list of all stores I will boycott at Christmas because they ran their Christmas commercials the day after Halloween - I mean, c'mon - I love Christmas as much as the next person...But Nov. 1? I want to celebrate Thanksgiving first for pete's sake....
And I only have one Santa believer left this year [sniff] but our kids have always seen us making out lists of what we really want and only getting some - they get it -so I just say "stick it on your list" - although I will be very intrigued to see how your experiment works - goodness knows it would've saved me some gray hairs!
Merry ahem...Happy Thanksgiving! Woohoo
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