1611.17 PRELUDE TO CHRISTMAS

Well the Christmas preamble is well on it's way with retailers in full festive mode pushing their wares on the great unwashed. I have to admit I've been dragged into this shopping frenzy by Morticia (under duress you understand).

As well as the shops the media is also getting in on the action, pop up channels 'Christmas 24' and 'True Christmas'  are churning out cheesy American Christmas movies 24 hours a day.

Formula for cheesy American Christmas movie is...

Santa's child/sibling/elf arrives in American town/city to find love

+

single parent with sickly cute kid

=

some sort of caper where someone learns true meaning of Christmas oh and the two get together.

You can tweak the basics but most follow this formula. 

What about the pre Christmas traditions? Most are new and created for the purpose of making the said great unwashed buy stuff they don't want.

The John Lewis Ad

This only started back in 2007 and only became a 'thing' more recently. This year's is a bit shit. Better than the pervert on the moon from last year though. You can see this year's ad featuring Buster the dog here.

Buster the dog ©John Lewis

Other retailers such as Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys (and more recently the likes of Aldi) have tried to muscle in on the act. My favourite has to be Sainsburys (their ads are far superior in my opinion), see the latest one here.

©Sainsburys 

None of the ads have encouraged me to shop in the respective outlets so whilst entertaining, they seem to be ineffective.

Black Friday

This nasty little 'tradition' was first brought to our shores (from America) in 2013 by Asda, the Leeds based supermarket chain which also happens to be a subsidy of US retail giant, Walmart. Since then it has spread like a plague being peddled by the likes of Amazon, Tesco and Argos. Black Friday has to be the worst example of greed I've ever seen. I view this 'thing' with absolute contempt. The behaviour it encourages is beyond despicable, watching mad mobs fight over a discounted telly is soul destroying.

Image subject to copyright 

Christmas is a great time to connect with family and friends, eat and drink a bit too much and watch cheesy movies (I do secretly enjoy those cheesy movies) but the greed, especially from big business is unacceptable. Enjoy this time but don't get caught up in the commercialised mess that Christmas has become.