For most people, this is a wonderful time of year. People are generally in good spirits, as they look forward with anticipation to the holidays and spending extra time with family and friends. Houses get decorated with lights and Christmas displays. Shopping for gifts can be fun as long as you can find what you are looking for, and especially if it's on sale! Some people are hard to shop for. This may be a future blog topic. Kids, for the most part, are pretty easy to shop for, because they tend to be easy to please. Of course, this time of year does bring it's challenges: bad weather, cranky people, inexperienced clerks and cashiers, long lines, avoiding bell ringers, and bad Christmas ads.
One thing I've noticed lately, and it is becoming a trend, is Christmas ads on the radio, that are disguised as a popular Christmas song. Take the 12 Days of Christmas for example. I recently heard an ad, which replaced the normal 12 gifts, with 12 things that you could buy at their store. And another one had 12 types of service that their company offered. Yes, more than one business is using this technique. This just ruins the song for me. Now I have always enjoyed the Great White North version of the 12 Days of Christmas, from SCTV's Bob and Doug Mackenzie, that is a classic. But it is a parody. Like some of the stuff Weird Al Yankovic does. But this is blatant commercialism at it's worst. When I hear bad radio ads or see bad TV commercials, it doesn't make me want to shop their store, it makes me want to avoid them. It makes me think that today's advertising executives have no original ideas anymore. Whatever happened to the people that created new jingles? Is this a dying art? Time to find my Dean Martin Christmas CD and turn off the radio altogether. Wonder what Christmas at the Governor's mansion in Springfield, Illinois will be like this year?
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