happy holidays
That’s right. I’m the first to say it. Don’t worry, whatever you’re saying doesn’t phase me. One, because I can’t hear you, and two, because I already hate myself. Because I just got out of a brainstorming meeting. The topic of said storming brains? Holiday promotions. There were cookies. It was my main motivation. I had two, and then another on my way out the door jackpot, by the way; peanut butter chocolate chip; scrumptious. The rest of the meeting is a haze.
From the lapbook, directly to my right, was heard a series of neuron irritating ballots from what sounded like Boys to Men with a merry, quasi-holiday theme. By track two I could feel my gallbladder in a heated argument with my spleen. I don’t know what it was about, but it was almost to the point of raised fists. The meeting proceeded with abstract references to emotional tripe and how we can spin that for monetary return. I didn’t speak up with my theme of, “it’s winter, do your children love you?”
Long-term readers may already know my thoughts on this merchandising cum bucket of a season. Or you can get a brief look at a post from last year, here. It pretty well sums up my feelings on the subject. But, I’ve never been a part of the back-end dealings before. It’s a trip.
What the holidays are about—good friends, family, memories, and sharing, don’t bring in the dollar. Oh, and for those out there along a different track: celebrating—on a day chosen because of existing ceremonies in pagan religions—the symbolic birth of a moral compass doesn’t pad wallets either unless you’re one of the hands that empties the collection plate. But tapping into those abstract values, like one would lodge a faucet into a maple tree, does. It’s how you wrestle what’s hard earned from those that can’t afford it ten months out of the year.
At least I’m working for a business that promotes in a way that adds to the city. It’d be worse if I was promoting a store that sold toys to mothers trying to appease their fuckwad children for three weeks. The money I generate helps support an economy instead of spiking profits to stay out of the read in a failing economy. To all the stores with Christmas theme sections and cards already sorted: fuck you very much.
If I had my way, the holiday season would be four days. And there would be a period of hollow, Mariana-trench-esque nothingness between Xmas/Hanukkah and New Years Eve. Then everything would snap back to normal. But I don’t. And by the time I’m thirty, the holiday season will start on the first Wednesday of August. Just wait ’til December actually rolls around. That’s when I really get in the holiday spirit. It’s intense.