A Holiday Note
Guilt and the Consumerist Drive
By Sam Linton
Posted December 25th, 2007.
Ahh, Christmas! Oh, you may call it the Holidays, the Yuletide, even Hanukkah or Ramadan (it’s okay — Bill O’Reilly isn’t here to stop you), but it’ll always be Christmas to me. Not for any religious reasons, mind you. The old “Big R” and me have had an understanding for some time: we remain 100 meters apart at all times. It works for me, and it works for her, so we get along fine now. The kids are a lot happier, too. But I digress. To me, Christmas is that magical time of year when you can go anywhere in the city’s commercial core, do anything you want, and just
feed off the rampant energy of frenzied consumerism coming from all around you. I love it. It gets me
off. Everywhere you go, you can see the maddened throngs, teeming human masses moving like salmon upstream, sliding against each other, bumping over one another trying to get the freshest, latest, most
now thing. You’ll read a lot of bad press about this type of crass consumerism at this time of year, but not from me. Never from me. After all, isn’t “crass” just another way of saying “honest?” This is the time of year when it all gets laid bare, when all the consumer urges we’ve been penning up inside us explode forth, finally given an appropriate vent in the spirit of generosity. After all, how can it be called greedy if we’re not even buying it for ourselves? Finally, lust and the whole spirit of consumerist need can be indulged in, without any of the complications of guilt, prudence, foresight or planning which dominate the rest of the year, and the results are truly magnificent to behold.
Don’t believe me? Go to the Eaton Center. Go to the Young Street Strip. Go to any massed commercial location you can think of (it doesn’t have to be in Toronto), and witness the majesty of Western culture at its zenith. You’ll see people, normal, everyday people with their own hopes and dreams, jobs, friends and family, scrambling for goods like they were Spitfires and Jerry was at the door! (Sorry, that one was a bit of a stretch, but it does illustrate a “combat” metaphor pretty well.) And what a battle it is! Because, in this modern, wonderful world of ours, what better way do we have to show appreciation and love than through our boughten goods? Again, this is not irony or sarcasm; really, what else is there? It’s not as though we have many other values left. Religion is out, unless you’re celebrating Christmas “the creepy way” (in which case you are probably not my target audience), and ideologies can be as bought and sold as anything else. So what we have left is through products, where what you
get someone shows just how much you love them.
Now, the cynics would spin this into a whole “whichever gift costs the most wins” thing, but that’s not it at all. That would be too easy. The true consumerist thrill is in finding that one gift, that perfect commodity that not only speaks to the receiver’s identity, but helps them to shape it. Sure, an argyle sweater or a Nintendo Wii may bothcost a lot, but unless you buy ‘em for the right person, they don’t mean squat! What good is a nice sweater gonna do for filthy cousin Tommy? Or a Wii for disgruntled uncle Johanne? But Uncle Johanne sure could use an argyle sweater to show his contempt for modern fashion, and imagine how much filthier cousin Tommy could be if he was all sweaty from playing Wii Sports! You see, the gift must balance
costly with
thoughtful, the exterior with the interior. And therein lies the game…
“So what?” you may ask me. “What are you trying to say?” you may well inquire. What I am getting at here, gang, is that you can’t let guilt get you down this season. Yes, you’re a consumer whore. Yes, you’re buying into a culture of commodification devaluing “love” and “fellowship” with crude dollar amounts and corporate logos. And yes, you may well be stepping over other people to do it. But you do this all the time. Every week of every month of every year. It’s simply how life works these days. But this time of year, under the auspices of whatever holiday you choose to celebrate, is the only time you can actually take to feel
good about your spending habits, because you’re doing it for the Joy of the Season and for those you love. It may not be a perfect marriage, but what is? For this one time of year, spend lavishly, consume mightily, forget the guilt, and just enjoy the holidays.
…
Just don’t forget to confront your spending habits next week in your New Year’s resolutions. Frankly, they’ve been getting a little out of hand.
