Tag: xmas

Annals of Commerce: Holiday Specials

My project this season is to collect the weirdest holiday sales pitches, i.e., the ones that have to stretch the most to associate themselves with any of the possible Fall and Winter holidays. So far I have:

  • Buddhist teacher selling “holiday” cards to somehow assist children in African country
  • “Celebrate and give thanks all week in EverQuest® with 25% Bonus Station Cash™ and Increased faction hits all around Norrath!”
  • Ham radio tree ornaments from the American Radio Relay League.

Please drop any good ones you find in the comments. I’m sure there will be some winners.

YES

On the twelfth day of Christmas, substitute sent to me…

Twelve kooks drumming
Eleven burritos piping
Ten bathos a-leaping
Nine pataphysics dancing
Eight trainwrecks a-milking
Seven borges a-rollerbalding
Six perversions a-cooking
Five aqu-u-u-uarius records
Four william gaddis
Three macdonald harris
Two unironic pleasures
…and a brecht in a taxonomy.

Get your own Twelve Days:

The universal sales event

If I get one more of those GIVE THE GIFT OF DEATH & DISMEMBERMENT INSURANCE! or LAST CHANCE TO SHOW YOU CARE WITH AN ARBY’S GIFT CERTIFICATE or ORDER TODAY FOR CHRISTMAS DELIVERY OF NO-LEAKS-MLADY BEDPANS I may… just… become…

… a little less Christmasy.

I do understand that people who sell children’s bicycles or fine chocolates or sex toys are going to be advertising a lot this time of year, and I can make my peace with that. The inappropriate products and services sold as “holiday gifts” are astounding, though. All services have gift certificates and all products have special Gift-Pak stupidity.

I salute the energy and inventiveness of advertisers, but come on: prepaid oil changes? donations in your name to contentious and controversial nonprofits? A subscription to the Arthritis Health Letter? A new garage door opener? A genuine Third Reich swizzle stick! A dream date with Paul Williams in knee pads! A BABY’S ARM HOLDING AN APPLE

Well, it’s that time of year.

angelThere’s a touch of frost in the air, it isn’t quite Halloween, and we’re all flat broke. Therefore it’s Christmas Season, and I’m delighted to be the first to inaugurate it here on the LJ. I know some of you are going to say it’s too soon, but if you really thought about it, you’d realize you want it to be Christmas all the time. Sure you do. Anyway, that magical time of year has come in which Santas on TV sell you subprime mortgages and inflatable pools, out-of-work actors in Dickensian clothing serenade you with faith-neutral carols outside the Chick Fil-A in the food court, and HR emails you jingly-bell clipart that blows up Windows.

To kick things off properly, I’d like to remind everyone that He knows when you are Good or Bad, so be Good for Goodness Sakes. (Crude Flash, ~9 meg) Or you will suffer beyond your wildest imaginings.

Wassail, wassail!