Well, it's that season again. It seems it's always about all the gifts my true love gave to me, and the jingle jingle jingle bells of the cash register. Comming from a buying-driven society, I guess it's not so unusual to have decided not to buy into the consumerism. The sheer commercialism of the holiday season has always bothered me.

Not this year! Here's the deal:

Just about every religion has stolen something from another. Christmas trees are pagan, and so is the easter bunny. BothChristmas and Easter, in fact, are domesticated versions of holidays so wild that the pagans wouldn't convert without them. I say, it's high time we swipe this end-of-December "winter holiday" and turn it to our own kallistic needs. To this end, I hearby declare that from this day forth, the holiday formerly known as "Christmas" shall now be known as "Consumermas".

Consumermas is a rich holiday, full of buying things and even more buying things! Yes, I say revel in your purchasing, roll in your reciepts. Take pleasure in the slow seductions of advertising, in the tiltilating tease of the long choice of just the right gift.

Why not? Many of today's youth seek refuge from the endless cycle of buy-sell-buy. We grow up learning to value our posessions, and at the onset of young adult sentience, realize our shallowness. We get angry that we've been duped by the corporate logos fed to us with our milk and cookies. We decide that consumer culture isn't for us. Many of us try to somehow boycott Christmas by loudly talking about how crass it is, and not buying things for people who bought us gifts "because [we] don't want to buy into that consumer crap".

Yet, just like the Jesus/Satan duality, by glorifying the opposite, we're simply adding credence to the seething mass of Western economics. Most consumers recieve a short temporary shot of euphoria when they buy things - a fleeting feeling of wholeness at the union of cash and outstretched palm. But why let buying something be a cheap $2 hooker quickie when it can be a tantric 10 minute orgasm?

The modern world is, let's face it, pretty fucking depressing. Gang-rapes and drive-bys compete with annonymous politicians for corporate-created newstime. Monsanto modifies our food with barely-tested "safe" treatments, the oil industry lobbies for more cars and fewer busses, some Kennedy or another does what a million frat boys do every year with a million drunken cheerleaders... it's enough to make you want to break things. Or buy them.

Advertising designers are good at what they do. They realize that for you to buy the product from company A rather than company B, they have to make you feel like you're getting something extra. With a world as grey and depressing as ours can be, everyone wants a quiet window of peace and happiness. We ostracize each other daily - and we seek redemption through conformity. What better way to conform than to purchase happiness, in the form of any number of appropriately named products - Joy, Sunny Delight, etc. ?

So yeah, I'll admit, this still pisses me off. I don't like to think my sanity is for sale. But to a certain extent, I've begun to relax and enjoy the kitcsh of consumerism for what it's worth. Where else but America can you find things that were obviously created simply out of boredom? For example, the egg-slicer, or the toasted-sandwich-maker that you know will only get used once. What about hair-highlighting gel that turns a few strands a blandish color of purple for an hour or two? Or any manner of plastic figurines - aliens, robots, monsters, monkeys....

And what it really comes down to, as Santa was meant to teach us - it truely is more fun to give than to recieve. My wonderful friend Saint Unsure gave me five rather large plastic crocodiles for Consumermas this year. Now, don't get me wrong, I love rather large plastic crocodiles... but I can just imagine the fun he had in picking them out. I'm sure he was running through the toy store, grinning like a maniac, thinking of all the interesting things I'd be likely to do with five rather large plastic crocodiles (they're not aligators! - he corrected me on that one).

So, I say - no boycotting crass commercialized Consumermas. Enjoy delving into your imagination to find that one true gift - the thing they never knew they wanted. Skip through overflowing parkinglots. Congratulate people on buying things when in malls. Loudly exclaim over the things you've bought. Cherish the advertisements, good and bad alike. Why sit in the corner frowning when you can both laugh with them and laugh at them at the same time?

Merry Consumermas. Happy buying-stuff holidays.

--St. Mae
12/22/2000

PS: I give you complete and total permission to hate and even destroy all Chrismas music. Yech!