Saccharin Sweet Christmas Adverts

[ChloeDharma]

You know what, it's still November and i already want to vomit! I'm getting sick of all this Christmas stuff, music on the radios, and on the telly at the moment they have these nauseating adverts going on about families loving each other so much because it's christmas time....i think the last one i saw was by mastercard and i could have happily thrown something through the telly!
It angers me that companies use these tactics to manipulate people into getting into debt, and parents feel pressurised to spend stupid amounts of money on presents for their children!
This isn't a rant about the Christian festival, or the Pagan Yule (i mean, i'm pagan, i totally get where Yule is coming from!) but i just can't stomach all this materialistic, commercialist pathetically thinly veiled manipulation preying on peoples emotions! And it's all dressed up with fake smiles and all this revolting, sickly happy happy we're so excited because it's Christmas crap! Advert after advert of it!!!!
I know there was a thread on this recently....but i had to rant again!!!!

[Tabitha]

I have just one thing to say to you CD - Jamie Oliver's Sainsburys Christmas ad.

Where's the barf smilie please? Thank you.

[Shadowlee]

I totally 100% agree with you.

My husband really hates the ads that suggest that all women want for Christmas is large amounts of extremely expensive jewellry. Luckily for him, I don't!

[Co Phi]

Uh oh. Is it a bad thing for a woman to want large amounts of extremely expensive jewelry? I better.........mumbles and wanders off to change Christmas wish list..........

[shrimp]

mmmm I kinda like some of the adds......

Having said that we are doing Christmas on the cheap as ever, with a few well chosen, thoughtful (*cough - cheap - cough*) presents. I've saved on individual presents by buying my family and the inlaws a game each to play as a family. Main present to bring everyone together for fun then little individual gifts to show everyone that I'm thinking of them.

I love the run up to Christmas, but Christmas itself has not been a very happy time for my family for a while. This Chrstmas will be the first time I've had Christmas at my parents without my lovely faithful old Lurcher around (she had to be put down last jan). So the run up is the best part for me!

[Celtic Queen]

All the adds and commercial stuff do annoy me too - that's not what matters for this holiday, whether you are pagan or Christian (which I am), sigh. And the pressure for the Christmas dinner. I am trying to convince my mom to scale down our festivities - they got scaled up a good deal when we started having my Sister In Law's parents with us for Christmas (she is an only child, and my bro and SIL's son is both families only grandchild, so that was the best way to have everbody happy), which I think is silly, and mom starts to resent the additional work.

So, shame on those add people for wanting to spoil such a nice holiday! Let's not let them win, OK? ;-)

[Merlin]

I agree, a lot of them are really really really dire. The interesting thing is that while the currant Argos one (you have to be British to see this) is saccharine I find that as the parent of small boys it does appeal to me on one level.

[Beatnik Guy]

A mall I frequently pass through has been playing "I wish it could be Christmas every day" on a loop all week (or so it seems). Uh huh.

OK, I admit it...I'm not a big fan of Xmas - period. After 17 days in India, it was a shock to find it in full swing here already though.

[SchnauzerMom]

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love the music and decorations. I hate the commercialism. I have never spent a lot of money on gifts. There has been a couple of times when we couldn't afford gifts so nobody got one. My DH's family believe that if you love someone you spend a lot of money on them. So I guess they think we don't love them. There have been several years when we made gifts for everyone. This year looks like a no gift year, no time to make anything and no money to buy anything. They'll just have to get over it.

[GlennaGirl]

Ugh! Barf! I'm suspicous about the whole good-will-toward-men part of the saccharine aspect here...so, um, why doesn't it extend to the other eleven months of the year? How can we all be so jolly toward eachother between Thanksgiving and December 25th but be jeopardizing eachother's jobs, slamming eachother's character for the sake of government elections, cheating on boyfriends or girlfriends, suing over spilled coffee and all sorts of other hideous things for those other eleven months? It just seems so fake to me. (Sorry to any Christmas-lovers out there. This is only my take on it.)

As for the ads--the guiltier and weepier they can make you, the more you're likely to whip out a credit card with a sob and say, "Order me ten of those! I WANT that feeling and if spending upwards of a thousand dollars average during the Christmas "season" will do that, then sign me up."

Yuck...I always count down the days until this holiday is over.

[LaMusette]

This is such an interesting thread, I think because many of us have a cynical resistance to having our emotions manipulated by the advertising giants of commerce. For the same reason, I do not watch movies starring animals and small children! I had rather save my emotions for real life, maybe?

As I have done some studying this year on the history of Christianity, I have been intrigued to find that in the past, the season of Advent (roughly four weeks before Christmas, ending at sundown on Christmas Eve) has been a season of fasting and self-examination in preparation for receiving the birth of the Messiah.

How far we have come . . . .

Using the "mute" button on the telly,
Nan in Louisiana

[teela1978]

I find it slightly interesting that this thread was started by a Brit, at work we just got a new post-doc from england who has been talking about how much he loves thanksgiving because it puts off the full swing of Christmas for a couple extra weeks.

In my area we just got all the lights and music going yesterday so I'm not quite sick of it yet (actually kinda excited about the lights ) but you've probally had it for a while now eh?

[Arianwen]

The malls have all the Christmas Crap out already here. Already playing $%$% Christmas music, which I hate.

ARgh.