Just Another Day – A Comment on Holiday Commercialization (Katherine Weigl)

  

     You switch the screen on and watch the world as it counts down, anticipating the moment when unhappy times can be tossed out with last year’s calendar, when people promise themselves this year will be different—that they will get out of debt, finally quit smoking, or lose that last twenty pounds.

    5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

     The confetti falls like buckets of rain, the shouts are a thunderous clap of lightning. Fireworks explode in the sky and drizzle down to the crowd below like raindrops of glowing light. The crazed partiers, who are either unduly energetic or just plain tipsy, slosh out their goodbyes to 2011, to all the bad habits and the less than perfect situations, as if a single day could completely erase all of these problems. As you stare at the storm of people locking lips with loved ones under the Ball, you bitterly guzzle down a glass of sparkling cider. The fizz tickles your upper lip and even though the feeling is enjoyable, you would much rather have a kiss. You try to savor the moment—the taste of the apple cider, the voices of plastic noisemakers, the epileptic lights of Times Square—but discover none of it is really worth savoring.

     You slump back in your old Lazy Boy chair that should probably be dumpster fodder by now, and grip the remote as if it is the only thing that is tethering you to the ground, as if the device is what makes Earth’s gravity applicable to you. You don’t understand why people are so elated, why they think a new year is worth celebrating. To you, it is just another day, a day that reminds you that you are not as young as you once were. Life will go on the way it did the year before, and the New Year resolutions, so determinedly set by all, will be abandoned by Valentine’s Day.

     You continue to stare blankly at the television screen as the camera zooms in on a couple that immediately reminds you of Ward and June Cleaver; he obviously adores her and she appears to have no objections with spending the rest of her life cooking for him, cleaning their future home, and raising his children. You stick out your tongue at the perfect pair, which you know is a childish thing to do, but you don’t really care all that much. Then, accidentally-on-purpose, you change the channel.

Here are some other blog posts that talk about holiday commercialization:

The Advent of Early Onset Holiday Commercialization Syndrome

Holiday Commercialization -- Do People Realize It?

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Katherine Weigl