We dream of a white Christmas but we always end up in the red.. (Christmas and Commercialisation)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Christmas and Commercialisation
Date:	21/12/08 (153 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Boys know how to shop

Disadvantages: Having to shop with women!

Most of you will know that the original Santa Claus is supposed to be dressed in green and called St Nikolaus, but not as many of you will know that the old man with the white beard, adorned in red and white only became that after Coca Cola dressed him in those colors for their magazine and newspaper commercials in the 1930s, the ultimate piece of Christmas commercialism. In fact Coca Cola could patent the new Santa if they so choose, their grandiose TV ads and bank of lawyers suggesting they may well do one day. And we know what product Chris Pringle would be plugging if he had a good lawyer!

But Christmas is not for the multinationals but for kids and we should do everything we can do make it magical for them, unless the kid isn't yours and you give him Christmas sweets or something on the public highs street for some Christmas cheer and their parents are nearby...Don't do that. What ever the rather silly and wispy Arch Bishop of Canterbury says about rejecting consumerism and getting back to basics by being friendly to your fellow human beings at Christmas you will be punched by the parents if you go near their kids. LoL! They say in South America that countries that don't take care of their young or old at Christmas are condemned to death.

In Northampton the Christmas spirit is the drinking of lots of it, and that's about it, single mums dressed as skimpy Santa's and any snow that falls over the holidays likely to be tinged with urine yellow and blood red in the high street come chucking out time. The local council has also got into that miserly spirit of things and has decided to cut back on the decorations this year, deciding to buy 18ft synthetic trees instead of the traditional 20 ft real spruces we have always had. These plastic trees cost us £18 grand for the three where as the traditional ones were less than £200 each. No doubt the councilor who signed the deal will be seeing two grand of that on his plastic. They have also cut back on the traditional over-hanging lights and replaced them with those tiny clear white nets of bulbs you get in foreign cities, which are rather stylish but there isn't many of them for a town that's anything but stylish. Northampton's Christmas is anything but commercial. I'm sure they could have tried harder and got some local businesses to chip and come up with some sort of sponsorship deal. I don't mind is 'Jeff's Coaches' is emblazoned over the trees in fairy lights tinsel. Christmas to me is time off work and lots of smelly family farting and over indulgence in the same old food and party games. GB just doesn't do Christmas well.

Right there are my 150 words and as there are no crowns to be had on speaker's corner anymore I'll take me 50p and Ill clear off!

Na! I couldn't do that, however hard dooyoo tries to put us off this wonderful section that brings most people to dooyoo and so keeps it viable (the campaign starts here).

So anyhow, back to consumerism. We are in this 'credit crunch' pickle because we buy too much cr*p with too much credit, Christmas, the alter of that particular religion, our heads held under the holy water in the font if we don't buy cr*p. But it f we don't buy cr*p then people get laid off and we have no economy. It's a tough one. Chinas whole boom has based on making stuff no one actually needs in China, the stuff they buy all having 'Made in Taiwan' stamped on it!
To make us buy that cr*p the 'man' uses 'advertising', the skilful art of making us all feel inadequate, especially this time of the year. First they create gaps in our lives that are usually not there, then try to sell us the impossible dream to fill those gaps with that cr*p!

As you know I'm not into brands so my Christmas shopping is based on asking what the people I'm buying for actually want. Guys can do their Christmas shopping in about five hours on Christmas Eve and still have time for a beer. They tell me and I get it. Simple! If they don't then it's a surprise 'gift' time, and no one likes surprises at Christmas. We want Christmas presents, not the dreaded Christmas gift. Last year my sister bought me black n white Dads Army video tape! Women, of course, take for ever to shop, mums Christmas shop usually beginning in January. My mum even bought some Christmas matches from the German market in Birmingham last week so she doesn't burn her fingers lighting the candles on the dinner table. She hadn't used last year's long matches yet. Any excuse! Women get bored easy and shopping is how they fill their time. Because women shop till they drop they have everything they need (and don't need) and so I never know what to buy them. Like I said in a previous review here, 70% of all purchases on the planet are made by women. One third of them they never use, like three inch long Christmas matches...

Where Christmas is at its most cynical is in the TV commercials and in the shops were parents are put under pressure to buy the big ticket items like game consuls and the must have toy. The suppliers deliberately make those toys hard to get to pump the hype and then you have the sad sight of people queuing all night outside department stores to get the latest CD or video game that they will be chucking in the bin this time next year. But their kids have to have them because the man on the telly said so. And if dads don't get them they become those rather pathetic men we blokes are stereotyped in those TV adverts (think BT bloke).

Well, I would like to wish Merry Christmas to all on dooyoo (accept the ones you guys probably don't want to either) and a special Happy New Year to all the girls here who have tolerated my cheeky comments. As I'm not allowed to call you babe anymore, yet the member who tops the all-time speaker's corner list is allowed to call the Muslims the 'Nazis of Europe', I hope Santa is more sympathetic and has a few more speakers corner crowns for us in his sack for those that have worked really hard this year for dooyoo come the 25th.

Summary: Time off work..