The Eleventh Post of Christmas: One More Mocking Day Before Christmas!

Today (Saturday the 22nd) is the 11th day of Christmas, which means that today is the day when you should be showering your true love(s) with eleven pipers piping. If it's late Saturday night and you have failed to do this, then it doesn't matter that you have already given them or what you have wrapped under the tree: you have sold them all short. This, in not so many words, is the underlying meaning of the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” It might be more implied, that love=presents, but this is the message nonetheless (everyone sing along!! "Four calling birds, no less, are to-tally required, to make it anywhere with me!").

With the help of catchy (if confusing) Christmas songs (“Why would anyone even want ten lords leaping?”), stores and companies churn out dozens of holiday themed commercials every year, ripe with catchy sayings, slogans and, (dare I make a bad Christmas pun?) jingles (ha!) . Also, the word "churn" is appropriate for some of these ads because that's exactly what they do to your stomach upon viewing them. To be fair, only one of the three, most irritating ad slogans (see below) is really Christmas-exclusive: the other two can be heard all year round. These are by far not the only slogan offenders, but they are the ones that kept coming on today before and during the bowl game.

And without further ado, my least favorite ads campaigns of the season/year:

1) Kay Jewelry: "Every kiss begins with Kay!"

A double whammy! First off, this premise makes absolutely no sense! None, whatsoever. Every kiss? Second, there is a tune that goes along with it so it becomes ingrained in your brain, eventually incorporating itself right into your DNA.

There are at least three Christmas themed TV commercials. One has the dad prompting his son to read an adapted version of "The Night Before Christmas," probably called, "The Trip to the Store When Dad Postponed Retirement and Car Payments to Get Out of the Dog House" and then the dad slips something diamondy into mom's hand. Another one involves diamond giving and kissing (always in that order) at a green light in traffic. How romantic!

Every kiss begins with Kay? Really? That's the premise you're sticking with. Every commercial (and this is all year round) has a couple, usually a middle aged, yet attractive, married couple exchanging the jewelry. They invariably kiss after handing over the rocks. Have these people never kissed before this? Do the women think: "Well, you've worked and supported us for fifteen years now. And the diamond wedding ring was pretty good. I guess I can kiss you now. Just don't let word get around that I'm that kind of girl, ok?" A more accurate ad would be, "Buy your wife something from Kay and she might kiss you, but we're not promising anything, so don't get your hopes up."

"Every bout of nausea begins with Kay Jewelry commercials!!" See, how ridiculous sweeping generalizations are, Kay Jewelry?!

2) Jared Jewelry Company: "He went to Jared!"

Wow! Two horrendously irritating jewelry ad slogans! Terrific. Again, these ads run all year long. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't think of any particular Christmas themed Jared ad. And yet they are all the same. The ads always involve a mass of people noticing or hearing that someone received some fabulous piece of jewelry, hearing that it was purchased at Jared and then repeating, over and over "He went to Jared!" You can literally hear the forced exclamation mark in their voices. Remember the song "Fish Heads?" Remember that? "Fish heads, fish heads, rolly-polly fish heads . . ." The Jared commercials are like that only more so. Also important the way that the people repeat the catch phrase, and wide-eyed, ridiculous expressions on their faces, shows their particular emotion: "He went to Jared!" (impressed with fine taste in jewelry store). "He went to Jared!" (either indicating disgust with their own, inferior spouse who failed to go to Jared, or inappropriate, almost lustful attraction to someone else's husband/fiancé). "He went to Jared?" (impressed that man is not a paraplegic deaf/mute I suppose).

3) McDonald's Gift Cards: "Get everyone what's on their list"

Not much to say here (except if it wasn't for McDonalds, there would be a jewelery store monopoly on ridiculous and lame Christmas jingles! If you weren't so obese and breathing so heavily, I'd hug you right now Mickey-D's!).

The idea behind these commericals is that you give people McDonalds gift cards and they use them to buy the fatty, arteriole clogging food that they are addicted to.

I'm not altogether sold on the idea of gift cards as it is ("See I put some effort into this! I had to go all the way to the store to get this card! Now you can go back and do the thoughtful shopping that I was too lazy to do!"). And since most cards are straight across exchanges for the value (i.e. there is no discount for buying a gift card, a $50 gift card purchased for $45 or something), I really cannot imagine a situation where it would be any more meaningful to just give someone the cash. If the gift card says, "Hey I know you like CDs, so I got this gift certificate to Media Play!" than cash says, "Hey I know you like buying things and not using your own money!" which I think is a more honest and universal feeling anyway. It also amuses me that the commercials show the gift cards being given to people you only have causal contact with anyway: dry cleaner and paper deliverer (or something). In both of these professions, why would they not prefer a $5-10 tip instead?

And a gift card for McDonald's? Ewww. I'd rather eat the eleven pipers piping.