In This Economy?

Hello fellow American consumers! Breadwinner here, offering up a purely economic argument FOR keeping the Christ in Christmas, as they say. In true ITE style, I will utilize a numbered list to keep things easier for your short attention spans to process.

For the sake of clearing up any confusion, and because the term “Xmas” tends to offend people, I will for the remainder of this post refer to the religious holiday of Christmas, the one that celebrates the baby Jesus and all that, as Christmas. But as for the cultural, obsessive, shopping-riddled, tacky-as-hell holiday SEASON often mistakenly called Christmas, I’m going to hereby refer to that “holiday” as Chri$tma$.

1. Chri$tma$ is Effing Expen$ive.

madne$$ and ab$urdity

According to a few sources I found on the subject, “U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $682.74 on holiday-related shopping” this year. I don’t know about you, but I am willing to bet that that number is generally much higher. Do you think they divide the entire projected holiday spending total by the total number of U.S. consumers? Does that include folks who don’t celebrate the big holiday, like Jews, Pagans and the otherwise hell-bound?

Kwanzaa!

Well whether it’s six hundred dollars, or six thousand, I’m willing to also bet that more often than not, it’s much, much more than those aforementioned consumers can afford. Better start saving starting December 26th, right?

2.Chri$tma$ is Effing Contagiou$.

Candles?! Where the f*ck are my presents?

It seems Chri$tian$ who celebrate Chri$tma$ are rubbing off on the non-holiday-season-obsessed minority. Take the Jews, for example. Chanukah is a holiday that celebrates a miraculous war victory by scrawny, outnumbered Jews. Miraculous!! There’s also another part about a shtickle of oil lasting like eight times longer than it should have. It’s sometimes called a “festival”, and other times called a “feast”, but either way, it’s not so much about presents. There are no White Elephants or Secret Santas in the Old Testament. That being said, Chanukah historically falls during the beloved American consumerist’s “holiday $ea$on,” therefore rendering it comparable (for some reason) to Chri$tma$. And for good reason! Imagine you’re a little Jewish 4-year-old. You don’t have a lot going for you, and the holiday $ea$on totally $uck$. All your Christian friends at school get tons of presents on Chri$tma$, and all you’ve got are some candles, a spinning top or two and if you’re lucky, poor quality, chocolate coins. What. The. Hell. You’re thinking about converting right? Well, Mom and Dad obviously aren’t cool with that idea, so perhaps they cook up a little scheme to get you hooked on Chanukah. “Christmas is just one day! But Chanukah is EIGHT DAYS OF PRESENTS!!” And then, before they know it, the evil cycle of endle$$ $pending begin$…

I could go on; there are more stories of contagiou$ con$umeri$t holiday$, each of which only further harm the economically-challenged — of every faith. No one is $afe.

3. Jesus Effing Hates Elmo.

Tickle Me Elmo? Seriously?!

Sure, the wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. But there is also a smidge of teen pregnancy, murder and maybe even blood-drinking tossed into that story, none of which are forced upon us by each and every man, woman, child and department store in the nation. So what the hell is up with all the shopping?! I’m not saying gift-giving is bad, evil or even uncalled for. What is uncalled for is the sheer amount of spending — and over-spending — that is manically, often maniacally spent in the name of Chri$tma$. Bible beaters become catalog clappers. And I don’t care who you are (I’m looking at you, Neiman Marcus), that’s just not right.

In closing, I must insist it’s not too late. Don’t give in to Chri$tmas! Don’t give up on Christmas! Stop acting out UFC fights in the aisles of Toys R Us. Stop buying armfuls of decorations like tinsel-obsessed zombies. Start pretending to be poor, and you might just get happy for realz (oh shit — it’s getting deep now isn’t it?). You can thank the shitty economy for that little gem.

Y’all are probably off of work today (or unemployed), and if so you likely aren’t scoping out the interwebs on Christmas Eve. You might not get my message in time, but at least until 2012 there’s always next year. Either way, Merry Christmas from all of us* at in-this-economy.com!

*The opinions expressed in this post are those of breadwinner, and as such they do not necessarily reflect those of the entire ITE writing staff. Not to worry — I’ve already given them all coal for Christmas. Now that’s a holiday tradition I can really get behind — meaningful AND cheap as hell.

Tags: Chanukah, christmas, consumer, economy, expensive, holidays, Kwanzaa, pagan, shopping

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 1:26 AM and is filed under Bad News, Good News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.