Mediocre Fred's Mediocre Blog (Ret.)

Feeling Ho-Ho-Hum

Today's Musical Selection: "A Christmas Carol" by Tom Lehrer

Hi, everybody! Today is my annual Grumpy Holiday Post, in which I put on my Scrooge mask and bemoan what's become of the holiday season ever since the halcyon days of my youth, way back in the 1980s. (Note the sarcasm at the end of that sentence, please, and save the letters about my being a callow individual, okay?) I believe I'm entitled to one or two of these posts per year. It's my payback for those incessant Old Navy commercials featuring perfect-skinned models hawking sweaters to the tune of Christmas carols.

Anyhow, a couple nights ago I was in a local chain bookstore, browsing around for gifts for friends and family. I really am lousy at gift shopping. Other people look around in store windows and point and say, "Oh, that would be just perfect for (Jessica/Shawn/Fluffy/Dr. Kevorkian)," but I don't. For one thing, I don't spend much time staring in shop windows. But more generally, I dislike shopping, especially in big stores with big crowds. I always wind up feeling like a refugee, clamoring out of my leaky boat onto a stern and unfamiliar shore teeming with strangers, all of whom rush about from place to place with a sense of purpose and belonging, brushing past me and ignoring me as I stagger and blink my eyes, trying to make sense of the terrain. Eventually, I muddled through, picked out a couple selections and paid for them. (I'd say what they were, but some of the intended recipients read this blog, or at least claim to.)

On the way home, I turned on the radio, and there was a commercial for some mall out in Maryland. The ad aped the call-in show format, with a caller telling the "host" how she never could find any gifts that her friend liked. The "host" wound up suggesting mall gift certificates, saying, "This times, when she says 'It's just what I wanted!'... she'll mean it.'"

When I got home, I turned on the TV to see a commercial featuring a young woman in a leather-punk outfit shopping in a pastel-pantsuit store. Turns out she was trying to spend a gift certificate her grandmother had gotten her. The ad then extols some Visa gift card, which you can spend anywhere.

You'd see these ads, and think they were right up my alley, right? Keeps shopping time to a minimum, and saves me those dazed hours staring at racks of identical-looking merchandise and trying desperately to remember if it was my baseball-playing buddy or my cousin who had mentioned an interest in Immanuel Kant or snow globes or whatever happens to be dancing in front of my fevered eyes at the moment. You'd think I'd be a big booster of these things, right?

Well, I'm not. I hate them because they're yet another manifestation of the worst trends in our self-obsessed instant-gratification culture. I'd rather brave the wilds of the worst shopping-center jungle than go the gift-certificate route.

This is just Fred being an old crab again, right? Well, hear me out before you draw that conclusion.

The premise of these ads, and the lure of the gift certificates, is that you're so unique and special that no one can shop for you like you can shop for yourself. (Kind of like the Republican premise on taxes, that you can make better spending decision with your money than the government can.) By raising the specter of the unwanted gift, the retailer hopes to shame you, the giver, out of buying whatever you think the recipient might want, because he or she will secretly hate it and resent you for it.

If you're really that inept at picking gifts, perhaps a direct cash payment would be the way to go. But a lot of people still consider it gauche to give cash as a gift, especially to people outside of the family. Thus, we have gift certificates, the socially acceptable form of cash. You, the giver, can abdicate gift-picking responsibility without committing a faux pas. What a deal!

What a fraud.

In the case of store or mall gift certificates, it's a win-win for the retailer: the giver has to go to the store or mall to get the certificate, and the recipient must go back to the store or mall to spend it. Two customers for the price of one gift. What a deal, huh? (In Visa's case, I guess they want to get the recipients, some of whom will probably be young, in the habit of using Visa for their spending needs.)

Here's my beef: It's old news that the old chestnut, "It's the thought that counts," has become a punchline. What bothers me is that we've bought so blindly into the commercial ethic of the holidays that we think that the quality and/or price of the gift is a measure of the worth of the giver. We rush to put a price tag on the gift, forgetting that the point is supposed to be to revel in the fact that we have people who care enough to want to give us something. Gift certificates make this process simple by removing the guesswork. The other person's value as a friend or family member is spelled out right there on the front of the damned thing. The scoreboard is there for all to see. "Well, I gave him a $50 gift certificate, but he only gave me a $25 gift certificate. Guess he;s not as good a friend as I thought." Gag me.

If we're going to go downt his road, why bother with the pretenses? Hell, go ahead and give cash. What's the difference? Hell, why even bother with going to the ATM? Just wire the money directly to the other person, and send the person a notice of the transfer. Draw a holy wreath on the bank slip if you're artistically inclined. Happy Holidays!

What's the matter? Something bothering you? My idea a little too... crass, perhaps? Well, go ahead and explain with a straight face the difference between my idea and a little plastic card charged up with $30 of buying power at your local Bed Bath & Beyond.

Whenever the holiday approach, I always wind up singing today's musical selection to myself. Tom Lehrer called the growing commercial trend way back in the '60s. In the introduction to the song, Lehrer says, "It has always seemed to me after all that Christmas, with its spirit of giving, offers us all a wonderful opportunity each year to reflect on what we all most sincerely and deeply believe in. I refer of course to money." He then proceeds to sing his acerbic little carol, which includes this passage:

It doesn’t matter how sincere it Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit, Sentiment will not endear it, What’s important is the price.

God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

I only wonder what Lehrer would make of today's commercial holiday orgy.

Let's face it: If you really can't possibly imagine what someone might want as a gift, or can't at least consult with someone who would know, you probably don't know that person well enough to buy him or her something. And conversely, if you're the sort of person who would reject a gift because it's not exactly what you want, you don't deserve to have anything bought for you.

For all my complaints about my shopping aversion, I do wind up picking something out for everyone myself, and I'm proud of it. And my family and friends seem to appreciate the effort, or at lesat have never complained. I think they appreciate the effort. I certainly appreciate the effort they put into picking out things for me. In many cases, it's not something I would have picked for myself... and I love it for that.

Why have be become so tracked into our own little ruts that we're afraid to let anyone else try to expand our horizons? Some of the best books I've read were given to me by friends. Had I seen them on the shelf, I'd never have bought them. But my friends know me, and they do a good job figuring out what I'd like. They introduce me to works I'd otherwise ignore, and I thank them for it.

One year, Papa Shaft gave me a George Foreman grill. Again, I wouldn't have bought that myself. But it's been hugely useful. Given that my apartment outlaws grills, it's the best way for me to prepare steaks. And it does well with pork chops, chicken and fish, too. This is what happens when you have thoughtful people who know you well.

And, sure, I've had my share of lousy gifts over the year. In particular, I have an aunt who doesn't have the knack. She tries, but she's a bit... peculiar. Her gifts are the stuff of legend. One year we all got socks. But these weren't just any socks... they were, as the package proudly proclaimed, made from recycled plastic soda bottles. And they were just as comfortable and attractive as they sound, I assure you. Another year we all got kit bags, the kind you get on international airline flights. (My aunt doesn't work for an airline, so no one knows where they came from.) Last year, she got my dad, who is a dedicated hobbyist photographer with a lot of professional-quality equipment, one of those $5 pinhole point-and-shoot cameras. It had a manual crank for advancing the film. It takes flash cubes!

But even such inept gifts as those, I appreciate. At least she cares enough to try. And you know, the stories about some of those bad gifts have lasted a lot longer than a number of gifts that were more apt.

Even as I'm writing this, there's another commercial on TV, showing a woman opening up a succession of gifts that are either tacky (a purple deer's-head candle-holder from Mom and Dad) or poorly planned (a fishing rod from hubby). Then she says, "And here's my gift to myself," as a BMW convertible is trucked up the driveway. Sigh. The recent theme of show-your-spouse-you-love-her-by-buying-her-a-luxury-car commercials also makes me ill, but that's another rant.

That's all for today. See you tomorrow!

Posted by Fred at December 8, 2004 10:06 PM