It’s Christmas Time in the City by Martha Thomases: Brilliant Disguise

Bah, humbug!  I hate it. 

This year is especially bad.  There’s an added shrillness and air of desperation in the pleas for holiday joy.  

At the bargain end, Walgreen’s commercials tell me I can buy presents for my entire family for under $50.  K-Mart says I’m K-smart if I buy from them.  Wal-Mart promises I’ll be able to afford Christmas, if only I don’t mind supporting their union-busting practices (and some trampling of unimportant members of their staff).  

Meanwhile, the commercials with the giant ribbons wrapped around cars are back on the air.  The New York Times advertises the usual assortment of jewels, furs, and handbags with price tags in the five figures.   

None of this would be unusual.  It would be part of the advertising wallpaper of our daily lives.  This year, however, is different.  This year, we are not only engaged in two wars, with people dying violently every day, but we’re also in the midst of one of the deepest economic crises in decades.  Every month, hundreds of thousands of jobs are lost.  Companies go under, taking their employees’ pension funds and health insurance.  People are losing their homes, their retirements, their dreams. 

This is not the time to be tempted by junk, and ads for crap.  

Don’t misunderstand me.  I adore crap.  I love goofy plastic toys.  I collect lenticulars, which are the plastic coated images that appear to be animated when you move them.  

Neither am I an ascetic.  I love me my creature comforts.  Wearing a hand-knit cashmere sweater, or getting a massage, or going on a vacation to some exotic corner of the world, especially one where they make funny drinks with umbrellas in them – these are a few of my favorite things.   

And I’m also no Scrooge, even though Christmas isn’t my holiday.  It’s a great pleasure to give a gift to someone I love.  I like to shop, thinking about what would make my loved one smile, and then making it happen.  Even though I don’t know you, if you let me know what size shoe you wear, I will probably make you socks.  Not right now, but someday, when you least expect it (and I have your address), you’ll get some hand-knit socks in the mail.  You don’t know how much this will make you happy.  It’s like wearing little sweaters on your feet. 

Every culture has celebrated the Winter Solstice in some way.  It doesn’t matter what your religion is (or isn’t), we are all comforted by the lengthening of days that begins on December 21.  We’re cold and it’s dark, and we want to huddle with our beloved mammals, and wait for Spring to come.  If this is also an opportunity to be grateful for our lives, through whichever spiritual path means most to us, this is a good thing.

So what’s the problem? 

Some of it is me.  I love to get presents, but when the occasion is shared with everyone on the planet, I will inevitably compare what I get to what others get.  And I’ve never been the kind of woman who inspired men to give me diamonds, or furs, or European vacations.  Instead, the men who love me give me things like books, music, Walt Disney World, spa gift certificates and lenticulars.  We plan our vacations, we don’t spring them on each other like a controlling dick.  But if no one has given me the clichéd gifts, maybe that means I’m not good enough. 

I resent that these real human feelings, which common, exhalted and personal, are used to manipulate us.  I loathe hearing about the importance of Black Friday on my nightly news, usually starting just after October.  My impulse to exchange love tokens with those dear to me is a combinations of generosity and greed, complicated enough.  

Please don’t make me feel like I must shop for the good of the country.

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Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, has an Amazon Wish List.