The first eCommerce XMAS.

In the words of writer Charles Bukowski: "[America is] not a free country -- everything is bought and sold and owned."

Christ-mas?

What did you say? Christmas is about Christ? Christ, how did I miss that? Oh, I know, its because he [beep]ing sold it to some evil genius toy maker who is trying to take over the world one broken parent at a time. Hey, you Christians out there! Doesn't it piss you off that "your" holiday got stolen? I googled all over the place and although there are plenty of "reason for the season" pleas to put the Christ in Christmas, I didn't find ANY organizations seeking to boot eCommerce out of the holiday. No pastors saying it’s a sin to exchange gifts on 12/25. I guess you think that just because YOU still remember the cross dude, Christmas is still yours? Y'all need to read some history, or go walk around town with your eyes open...

Where did this all start? And who stole it from whom?

During the winter, several pagan festivals were held which created conflict with the church. Saturnalia, a decadent Roman festival lasted 2-3 weeks. This festival honored their agricultural god and there was a lot of feasting, drinking and merry making. The Winter Solstice was (and is) celebrated by many cultures. Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and the days begin getting longer and so the rebirth of the sun was celebrated. The Persians feasted and paid tribute to Mithra and the Teutonic tribes honored Woden. Yule is in there somewhere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

Although this day was initially suppose to be a solemn occasion as decreed by Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome in 137, the influence of the different pagan holidays was destined. After several attempts to ban pagan rituals and customs from the Christian holiday, the church eventually gave way and incorporated many of them into Christmas by "Christianizing" them. So says dyslexic of gorb: "Resistance is futile, your ass will be laminated."

There may be some people who still celebrate Saturnalia, Yule, the solstice or even the picking of the navel lint, but this time slot HAS been pre-empted for Christmas: THE most widely celebrated holiday world-wide. And in exactly the same way, the most holy church of the eternal buck has "incorporated" Christ-mas into its holiday sales frenzy event.

Christmas:tm "A Corporate Holiday"

What? Christmas isn't about buying, selling, and owning? You still holding on to a thread of hope? Ok, maybe it's about death:

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/98/104769?src=rss_cbsnews "Researchers found that more heart-related deaths occurred on Dec. 25 than on any other day of the year among people not already in the hospital. The second largest number of deaths was on the day after Christmas, and the third highest peak occurred on New Year's Day."

This comes after years of us being told that Suicide rates do NOT climb during the holiday season. Be that as it may, depression and related abuse, stress, crime, and the deaths caused by things like that DO rise. Why more people don't directly off themselves, I don't know. But we are stressing ourselves to get that last obnoxious "Bratz Tokyo-A-GoGo Play Set" and dying of a broken heart in the attempt.

A friend of mine said it best on a public forum: "I am a cashier at a small chemists/drug store in Canada and I have seen what "holiday" stress can do to a normally tolerable species. I have seen elbowing and sneers, and heard shouting and malicious fights. I have even been sworn at, all while the words "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright" were softly playing on the tinny store radio."

Advertizements, and other lies.

Yes, December is a stressful time of year, and has been made so by the commercialization of the holiday. But is anyone *forcing* you to celebrate? Well... Do you have kids? Do they watch TV? Do they have friends or school mates who watch TV? Read on, doomed one...

In the primetime slot, the part that isn't a show on network television was 16:43 minutes per hour. The daytime level of advertising was 20:53 minutes per hour. Network news showed 18:53 minutes of commercials per hour and late night news aired 19:06 minutes of ads per hour.
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com

And what makes television different from other forms of advertising, is that the viewer has absolutely no control over the images. Sure you can change the channel, but you're really only watching more of the same.... Since there is no way to stop the images, one merely gives over to them.

So if your kid is one of the very, very few who watch only an hour of TV each day (the national average is more than 4 hours PER DAY) http://www.csun.edu/~vceed002/health/docs/tv&health.html then they will have seen something like 32 30 second advertisements per day. Or 11,680 ads from last Christmas to this one. And believe me, that is WAY conservative.

"6,000 repititions between the ages of..."

How many times A DAY do you tell your kid about giving, caring, loving, or any other positive action not related to...

Well, Lloyd Dobler said it best: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. "
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/quotes

Your only hope is to convince kids that ALL advertisements contain a lie, toys are bad unless you make them yourself, and keeping up with Jonnie isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Good freaking luck! Hah!
http://techref.massmind.org/techref/other/ads.htm

And this year, it's better, faster and more... e-like

But why did I say eCommerce? Well, this year is special folks! For the first time ever, or so reports the Post, "Americans who regularly use the Internet for shopping -- researching or buying products at least once a month -- will do more shopping online than at shopping malls and stores, from catalogues and by phone."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62355-2004Dec13.html

So Xmas, no matter what you would like to believe, Virginia, is all about eCommerce.

James Newton, eCommerce guru
"Helping your business write off that bigger Hummer, for a very reasonable fee"
http://www.ecomorder.com

My little bit of holiday cheer: