Christmas Commercials

As I said before, the first Christmas commercials used to be the lighting of the proverbial holiday season torch for me. Just like an Olympic flame bearer, I’d trudged through the misery of the previous year to finally light that happy fire of cheer and goodwill. I used to love the Christmas commercials of my bygone childhood, especially the one where the little snowman boy melts after he eats Campbell’s chicken noodle soup (In retrospect I think I was just glad that creepily mobile snowman turned out to be a cute little boy, because initially I didn’t understand why that insipid woman would let a massive melting snowball into her kitchen…my mom certainly didn’t like us tracking snow into her kitchen). I also enjoyed the Fruity Pebbles one where Barney says “Tis the season to be sharing, Fred” and everyone then feasted on what was (and still is) one of my favorite sugar-laden breakfast cereals. Another classic is the minimalist, yet fantastic Hershey’s Kisses playing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” While yet another that sticks out in my memory is the Glade Christmas Candle commercial. Don’t be confused. I’m talking about the late 90’s one where a beautiful melody is being played by a string quartet and various candles (Christmas Pine, Cinnamon Stick, Vanilla Cream) flicker in gauzy sentimental Christmas scenes.

But now, by God, I’d like to see the whole Glade candle empire go down in flames (no pun intended). The newest commercials are so grating that I have to shut them off or, by the grace of DVR, fast-forward through them. It begins with some stupid housewives giggling about how the house smells so amazing it must be a designer column of wax, then go on to christen the candles Gladé (pronounced Glad-ay…I know…go ahead and gag). If I have to hear it one more time I will jab out my eardrums with those previously mentioned sharpened candy canes. I also despise with a fiery passion, as apparently most people do, those Christmas commercials for the jewelers Kay and Jared. First of all, I know wonderful people named Kay and Jared, and I truly am sorry that they have jewelry stores as shitty as these named after them. If every kiss does begin with Kay, meaning that I require my boyfriend to get me some God-awful princess-cut monstrosity just so he can get some action, then I really would hope that for his sake he’d dump me. As would I fully understand if he erased my number from his phone and threw all my belongings to the curb if he ever saw me squeal with all my girlfriends “He went to Jared!!” Please, those commercials are in a word: shitastic. In general, I also hate all commercials that have some sort of scenario starring a demanding child/wife/husband/best pal that makes the announcer say “This Christmas…get them what they really want.” Honestly, if there was someone like that in my life they’d be getting a big “f you” from me. But I’d write it in a nice holiday card.