I’m been thinking a lot about how JOY is supposed to be upon us this merry holiday season. It’s as if JOY can be bottled and marketed and sold on the street corners. But why is JOY this great commodity? Isn’t JOY a natural, unplanned feeling. Spontaneous excitement and sheer instantaneous love of the moment? But when are our holidays measured in small stolen moments?
We’ve got hours of commercials telling us we are NOT good shoppers until we find the perfect gift. There is no JOY in shopping with crowds of people. Don’t tell Grandma, but there is NO sheer JOY in DRIVING to her house — unless it really is an open sleigh and a fleet of clopping Clydesdales hauling an Anheuser-Busch beer truck behind! Ho! Ho! All the way! Truly, the trip is too long, takes too much TIME and planning to orchestrate (thus ruling out that elusive, spontaneous JOY factor from the get-go.)
But everywhere I go and even when I don’t leave home (notice the onslaught of holiday cards and catalogs or am I in the minority still getting printed catalogs?? I must work on my carbon footprint some more!) I see JOY as this objective, this Jeopardy password, this mantra on the lips of all holiday shoppers as the KEY to the holidays. But there are other pitfalls to the SEMANTICS of the seasons. For this I give you just a few reasons. (Stay tuned for more!!)
My Cincy Favorites catalog (ships overnight the best ribs in the entire world – Montgomery Inn — as well as deLISH Graters Ice Cream (raspberry and (Joe’s favorite!) Skyline Chili provides a wealth of tempting food treats. The catalog also started selling United Dairy Farmers ice cream, which boasts they were awarded the “most exotic Ice Cream by People Magazine in 1984! The winning flavor — in case you weren’t an adventurous ice cream eater more than 25 YEARS AGO — was Homemade Brand Cookies ‘N Cream.
I find two things strange about this; First what do the readers of PEOPLE magazine KNOW about ice cream? It’s not like it was Bon Appetit magazine or anything. Secondly, can you STILL boast about winning an exotic ice cream flavor in the middle of the ’80s? I’ve gained enough distance and perspective to know the ’80s were not necessarily a decade of taste. (I could give you LOTS of examples, but Cool Ranch Doritos, PacMan and legwarmers should give you enough of a sampling of our synthesized music generation). We really thought cookies in ice cream was exotic? (Was this also the era where we enjoyed watching people on TV commercials squish rolls of toilet paper?!? And yes, there is no joy in toilet paper, even when throwing it on other people’s trees.)
But the biggest false joy inspiring factor is the flier that comes with holiday symbols, bubbling and glitzy and a coupon that has some absurd restriction. The beauty supply store’s coupon that works on only one day - a Saturday where I won’t be caught dead out shopping. The ubiquitous and unimaginative “$5 off a $20 purchase.” How is this a gift really? How am I getting a jolt of JooYYYY from a scheme to buy more and save a little. Is SPENDING really the way we are supposed to view JOY? Joy to me is finding money still left in my wallet at the end of this pushy time of year……
