Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 186
Featured commentary
The adverse evolution of Christmas
I
missed the “wooden” age of
Christmas. By that, I mean
when I was a child, the
wooden toys you see elves making
in movies were already a thing of
the long-past. In fact, in my day,
even toxic metals and choking
hazards were already on the way
out, though they were still popular
in cap guns, fire trucks and jackin-the-boxes and such.
Nope. When I was a child,
plastics were the thing. But these
plastics were still full of toxic
chemicals, so even old-schoolers
were happy.
Why, I remember we used to
see how long we could keep our
tongues on yo-yos before the burn
from the chemicals in the plastic
would become too much to bear.
The good old days….
And if some Ghost of Christmas
Past were to sum up the Dec. 25
gift evolution in my lifetime, he’d
pretty much have to label it as
“plastics to electronics,” with the
correspondingly massive increase
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
in price tags.
I mean, I overheard two guys
talking the other day, and one of
them said he was planning on
spending 3 to 4 grand on his kids’
Christmas gifts this year. Holy
moly! Four grand? In my day, that
would buy a couple Volkswagens.
And even if he had 20 kids, that
would still be $200 apiece.
Can you say overindulgence?
I mean, does any kid really need
that much electronic gear, that
many ways to avoid interacting
with his or her parents?
Now, I won’t lie to you.
Christmas, in my lifetime, has
always been about excess and
making sure your kid has the
latest whatever. And this is just
fine, if you’re the kid. But for
the parents … well, cheers to
the recession, anyway. It slowed
things down for a couple of years.
But, you’d think that, with
everyone giving everyone such
expensive gifts, there would
be a lot more Christmas cheer
displayed by holiday shoppers. Of
course, maybe a shopper only sees
the 4 grand pouring away before
Christmas, which would tend to
make him cranky — and doesn’t
see it come back in kind from the
kids until his gifts are unwrapped
on the 25th.
I know, who am I kidding? The
gifts those kids buy their parents
are paid for by their parents. That
would mean our 4-grand buddy
is actually shelling out 8 grand at
this special time of year.
That’s if the little ingrates
bother to return in kind, and
bother to take a couple of
moments away from “Angry
Birds” and use Dad’s credit card to
buy him a few things they need at
Amazon.com.
I won’t lie to you about
shopper’s attitudes, either.
Christmas shoppers have
always been hostile. Why, I
can remember, when I was 9,
and a rather large woman hipchecked me out of my place in a
department store purchase line.
But the evolution of Christmas
has seen shoppers getting meaner
and craftier as time passes.
These days, before you go out
Christmas shopping, you don
your holiday Kevlar and strap on
your pepper spray. And you shop
in packs, as well, putting your
minions out as decoys and cartblockers and having them create
timely distractions, such as fist
fights or phony seizures, when
necessary. During the recent
Black Friday sales, you had a
stooge near the front of every
line, and you each bought each
everything each needed, whether
each needed it or not.
Sadly, the adverse evolution of
Christmas will persist. The cost
of it will continue to increase, and
shoppers will become ever more
ruthless.
Why, I can envision a decade
or so in the future, when no one
will dare venture out on the streets
or to the mall at Christmastime.
All of the ridiculously excessive
exchange of funds and goods will
take place online, and we won’t
even see our gifts get unwrapped.
They’ll just be delivered by
armored cars, transferred from
one barred compound to another.
And, of course, none of what we
have discussed here even touches
on the fact people rarely think
about the reason for the season
anymore. Maybe we should just
punt, and call this Frankenstein
of a holiday we’ve created
Giftmas. Then we can go back to
celebrating Jesus’ birth in serene
and meaningful ways.
But what do I know? See you at
the mall.
Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or Twitter at http://
Twitter.com/DontSeriously.
