Let's Put the Commercialism Back into Christmas!

Faith and angst aside...Most modern associations of Christmas are really based on Commercial things.

What are your faves? Yule Log Show? Charlie Brown? The Grinch? Old Coke Adds? Sunny Aussie Christmas Picnic sceenes?

I like the Beer commercials with no words and a sleigh...there is also a sort of retro animation add...I think for a credit card, that shows people pulling up to a snowy house...dogs chasing cats, old retro cars, rabbits looking in the house from snowey hills...I LOVE that sort of thing

Hows about you?

On 2006-12-22 09:30, Gigantalope wrote:
What are your faves? Yule Log Show? Charlie Brown? The Grinch? Old Coke Adds? Sunny Aussie Christmas Picnic scenes?

Sunny? Not just sunny, BLOODY HOT! :)

Although its odd how many people have decorations like snowmen and all that down here, because that is what (commercialised christmas as opposed to religious Christmas) is all about...

I like all the coupons and sales.....well and good excuse to have a few cocktails while you open gifts and such. I am definitely gonna have to buy some of those ice-cycle looking Xmas lights when the sales hit after the holiday....cause I want some for next year. There is eggnog in the diary section during the holidays. Don't forget the office party....ours was good this year (Scotts at Jack London Square) I had the salmon & chicken....and we got to go home early.

Happy Holidays to the land of OZ. I am actually having a holiday party tomorrow cause a couple of our friends are in town from NZ. More good reasons for drinking!!!

The SNOWMAN by Raymond Briggs is christmas classic the UK, this year IRN BRU ripped it off for their christmas advert in a very special way..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfiqrkV_ZqI

Remember the Norelco spot that had Santa Claus riding through the snow on an electric razor. It had the same kinda look that the Rudolf Christmas Special had. That was a good one.

Here's the one from the 60s but I think they updated it in the 70s/80s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUQycfgCjr0

That Noelco sleigh ruled!

Yeah!

I loved the take off of the Snowman cartoon.
thanks for posting.

As I love Halloween too, I really Dig "the Nightmare Before Christmas"

Jeff(bigtikidude)

I like retail store and office building holiday decor.

The retail stores generally try to do something that stands out from other stores and as a result tend to have some of the more interesting Christmas decorating I come across.

The office building decor usually always looks fine but there's an undertone of sterile functionality to it which I find appealing. Most lobby Christmas trees are never really looked at, they're just hurried past and if noticed at all it's peripherally. They're the loneliest Christmas trees.

For me nothing it's not a commercial Christmas without my collection of Santa village Walmart Superstores. They put out a new design every year. And on X-mas eve I crack open a box of Dolly Madison Zingers and everything is good.

On 2009-12-15 09:07, naugatiki wrote:
For me nothing it's not a commercial Christmas without my collection of Santa village Walmart Superstores. They put out a new design every year. And on X-mas eve I crack open a box of Dolly Madison Zingers and everything is good.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen...I am just surprised I have never seen it!

Then again I have not stepped foot in a Wal-Mart in 6+ years and never plan to again--but I digress.

I do have to say that nothing says "Have a Satisfactory Non-Denominational Capitalist Wintertime Gift Giving Season" like Wal-Mart minatures! Thank you for sharing!

are those little plastic greeters
on the Walmart Christmas displays
creepy and retarded
like the ones in real life...

That's why i don't go there
they give me the creeples....

Pee Wee's Christmas Special

When I was a kid, no store would dare even hint of Thanksgiving until the day after Halloween, nor hint of Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. Otherwise, they would feel the public wrath and get severely bashed. That's when customer service meant something and companies would back off if they thought their customers might be offended.

Then you started to see Christmas decorations on store shelves before Thanksgiving, since commercialism really has no shame after all. For the past few years I've been seeing Christmas stuff in stores at the same time Halloween candy started hitting the shelves.

Before long you'll be shopping for red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July and have to climb over piles of red, white, and green.

They've been putting out Xmas decorations earlier and earlier? I've never noticed. You'd think people would say more about it. Or maybe someone would make a movie where Halloween and Christmas clashed somehow.

Something else I dig are municipal holiday decorations. I especially like the ones in small towns that hang from light posts. The smaller the town the less likely they are to have replaced them. The older faded and worn ones have a homeyness to them that no brightly colored banners or LED lights can ever achieve.

I love the lights! The more lights the better. But, I can't figure out why the trend for white only lights. It's boring. I love to see an explosion of color. I also like mono-chromatic lighting like all blue.

On 2009-12-15 12:13, nature boy wrote:[/i]
"...But, I can't figure out why the trend for white only lights. It's boring. I love to see an explosion of color."

White light is an explosion of color... all colors exploded together. But, yeah, point made.
After accumulating a bazillion strings of various mini-lights, my wife's deal, the last few years, is the big C9 lights. Of course, each bulb has to be carefully lined-up (my job) - not like the mini-bulbs, which can point every which way. Retro, I suppose... it's the size we had when I was a kid, but they don't seem to burn as hot as I remember. Those old bulbs must've been about 25 watts, in the old days, hot enough to burn your arm... or set the tree ablaze.

"The rum's the thing..."

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2009-12-15 13:04 ]

FYI--a few stores near me have Valentine's and St Patrick Day stuff on their shelves already.

Good news, everybody! If you want to complain about Christmas there's a thread for that!

Your Christmas Hates, Rants, & Weirdness

(And for those of you who might be shy about posting to an empty thread I already got it started with a weird Christmas scene I encountered and a rant!)

Sure, just about any band with a 15 minute lifespan puts out a Christmas album but I was just reminded of one of the best. Completely commercial, strangely endearing, and definitely ear catching: A Partridge Family Christmas Card by the Partridge Family (AKA David Cassidy, Shirley Jones, and a bunch of studio musicians and backup singers).

The arrangements are typical Partridge Family and the album has some of the best backing vocals of any Christmas album EVER. Their version of "Jingle Bells" is one of my favorites (Backing vocals: "Hey jingle bells! Jingle jangle ringing away!") and their take on "Frosty the Snowman" sounds like it was meant to be sung at Frosty's funeral. (I imagine the Partridges reverently gathered around a large puddle of water that has a couple lumps of coal and a corncob pipe in it.)

It's not only a swell album but I'd guess lots of people would absolutely hate it so it would probably make an excellent passive aggressive weapon to use on those family members you love to irritate.

Kenny - those Malwart greeters are actually images of Dick Cheney and when someone approaches he doesn't say "Welcome to Walmart" he says "Go Fuck Yourself!" (ripped off from Family Guy!)

Where the HELL did you find those Doritos?!

"Something, something, something, Dark Side, something, something."

[ Edited by: beadtiki 2009-12-17 13:12 ]

i found em on the internets...
No way I'm eating that crappy non-food genetically modified things!

Speaking of Commercialism and Publicity stunts...

On 2006-12-23 15:51, donhonyc wrote:
Remember the Norelco spot that had Santa Claus riding through the snow on an electric razor. It had the same kinda look that the Rudolf Christmas Special had. That was a good one.

Here's the one from the 60s but I think they updated it in the 70s/80s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUQycfgCjr0

On 2006-12-23 20:05, Gigantalope wrote:
That Noelco sleigh ruled!

Yeah!

agreed here.

The Norelco commercial was the best part about watching Christmas specials - the ONLY part my hubby wanted to watch!

I get a kick out of Christmas themed snack food and one of the main reasons is once again the combination of festive and functional. For me the snacks are sort of fun but tinted with melancholy.

Other than being impulse items aimed at kids Oreos with red filling or Christmas tree shaped Little Debbies seem made for the people who can't/won't bake or who have no friends or family who bake. But the fact that these people would choose the Christmas themed items over the plain is kind of endearing.

On 2009-12-18 09:07, woofmutt wrote:

Other than being impulse items aimed at kids Oreos with red filling or Christmas tree shaped Little Debbies seem made for the people who can't/won't bake or who have no friends or family who bake. But the fact that these people would choose the Christmas themed items over the plain is kind of endearing.

endearing?
i buy that crap cause it's ON SALE!
:)
tastes the same...

The commercialism has been beaten out of the UKs Christmas with Rage Against the Machine taking the No1 slot from Simon Cowell and the X Factor winner for the first time in 4 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/20/rage-against-machine-christmas-number-1

I was wandering around downtown Seattle Monday night looking at the Christmas decorations and noticed stores and office buildings seem to have again scaled back on decorations, even more than last year. And I'm pretty dang sure...Hold onto your Santa hats...The Nordstrom's flagship store reused part of their Christmas window displays from last year! It seems every year they tend to make completely new (and often unintentionally weird) displays, but this year the money must have gone to pay the electric bill.

Am listening to jazz renditions of / original Christmas songs (on WDCB FM radio, metro Chicago), surely an artsy-fartsy, demi-hip step away from traditional Yuletide ongoings.