No More Faux Ho Ho Ho

If there’s one thing you can say about America, it’s that we have a penchant for taking something nice and beating it to death until it annoys the hell out of everyone. A fine example of this is Christmas.

It’s tough to find one person in our bloated nation who is not aggravated by something about the holidays. Some hate the music, some hate getting together with their families, some hate shopping, some hate decorating, some hate cooking.

Me? I hate fake happiness shown in advertising. I hate seeing commercial after commercial showing fake families being fake happy. I hate seeing that girl open a gift from Sears and scream like she just got a new Lexus. I hate the commercial where the wife gives the husband a Lexus. Can you imagine a scenario where you could do that? I hate the family parties with the perfect people in the perfect house.

I hate the Christmas morning scenes of pretty people opening pretty presents – all of them perfect…and pretty. No morning breath. No bed hair. No gifts that completely missed the mark.

I hate that all of the wives are slim, trim and smiling and that all of the men seem truly interested in talking to everyone.

I hate the kids who seem comfortable in their too-cute clothes and their unbridled enthusiasm for every single gift.

I hate the commercials that preach to us about how we should feel about Christmas. I think Christmas is, at best, a mixed-bag filled with presumptions and imperfections and stress and people that are trying their hardest but often fall short.

Basically, I think we need to all lower our expectations and it should start with the commercials. Let’s put a moratorium on faux-everything. For just one year, could we show real people and if we don’t, then make them animated? I have no problem with Santa sledding on a Norelco shaver. I do have a problem with a guy handing his wife keys to a brand-new BMW.

Just for this Christmas, let’s be real.