America's Next Top Automotive Journalist

Halloween has passed, which means I have to endure Christmas shopping commercials – you know, the ones that add incessant holiday theme music and sound effects. I like these commercials in the same way I like a pair of crow bars slammed against my ribs.

I cringe at hearing bells jingle on TV and radio during the fall months. Too much, too soon. They make me want to vomit in the same way I would vomit if I were dunked in a sewage treatment plant.

Except for one show (Top Gear on BBC America), I don’t watch TV on my own. Any TV I see is the result of someone else’s watching. If I sit down for 10 minutes to see what’s on the telly, I’m guaranteed to see a holiday shopping advert with bells jingling and Christmas carols playing. At this point my face fills with rage, becoming more sanguine than Santa’s jumpsuit as my teeth grind into a wintry powder. This is usually followed by that unshakable urge to vomit.

Don’t ad agencies know the consumer is tired of the same old shit every year? It boggles my mind. It makes me want to rebel.

“Come in for 25 percent savings now through November 16th.” Jingle jingle.

“Tis the season for savings.” Jingle jingle.

“It’s the perfect holiday gift …” Jingle jangle, and more jingle, with a children’s choir in the background.

Hey, cool it with the jingling. I have a calendar. I have two brain cells to rub together. I KNOW WHAT SEASON IT IS.

All these commercials reminding me I should be spending money on people to show them I love them? That really whores out the holiday spirit, doesn’t it?

This year, I’m boycotting the holiday rush. I’m hand-crafting my gifts.

What matters more than anything is the thought – it’s the thought that counts, and when you take the extra time to make something from scratch, it means all the more to your recipient.

Furthermore, folks who opt to make their Christmas gifts will be happy to make them for their friends/family. People who opt to shopping for their holiday gifts will more than likely be pissed off doing it.

For so long, it has always been the same thing each year: with the arrival of the holidays comes the arrival of jingling on the TV and the radio. By this point we’ve been conditioned to respond to these sounds in a Pavlovian way, and that response is usually, “Oh no! I have to go holiday shopping,” followed by the eyebrows becoming drawn together and downward, followed by profanity emanating from the mouth, followed by a nervous breakdown highlighted by a nude appearance at your neighbor’s doorstep, followed by a few months at the mental hospital.

This year I’m changing my Pavlovian response. The next time I hear a company using corny-ass jingling in their ads, I’m going to make a mental note to boycott that company.

It’s time the sound of jingling makes us happy for the beauty of the holiday season because I’m sick and tired of how the last three months of each year make me feel like a tortured mental patient with feces in the lungs.