Commercialism has bitten hard this year. My friend and I were walking through the store-formerly-known-as-Dayton's recently. During our search for one of the skyways, we saw several of those little round tables they always put in the center of the traffic flow to add congestion. They're designed to entice you to buy just one more little thing. In prior years, the featured item was usually cellophane bags stuffed with dead leaves and dried up fruit slices, selling for $12.00 to make your house smell essentially as if you didn't own a cat. You couldn't walk anywhere in the store without facing hundreds of these scented bags. (how did the soc. dept. staffers get past these tables?) Okay, I confess, I bought one every year and they smell much better than my cat.
This year, however, the aisle-cloggers are featuring electronic games ranging from sixty to just under a hundred bucks. These gadgets replace paper and pencil games (crossword puzzles, for example). Who wouldn't want to fork over an obscene amount of cash for something that comes in your 25-cent daily paper? But my first reaction when I saw them was how jaded we are about Christmas. It takes more than dried leaves to stuff a stocking nowadays. You'd better ante up if you're gonna impress yer girl. Friendly tip: try getting that crossword item at Tarzhay dot com. They seem to be cheaper there. You'll have enough left to go over to Wal-Mart (ugh) and drop some green ones in the red kettle.
While we're on the Christmas-is-for-marketers topic,
Steve Lowery in the Orange County weekly points out the bizarre "trend" of expecting a Lexus for Christmas.
See my comments in Advertising & Christmas.