Time to get a little off topic. The pic isn’t me, but a recent addition to flickr (little black bars are mine) that pretty much sums it up for most of you.
Anyone else noticed the general feeling of bah-humbuggery lately? I don’t really get into this holiday thing, but it seems to me that people around here are down in the dumps so to speak. I drove around looking at the lights the other day and noticed a very distinct lack of effort from the usual “keeping up with the Joneses” types. Like Halloween, you can usually find the best stuff in the “rich neighborhoods” but this year’s lack of participation was very apparent. I’d say less than half of the houses seen had not been decorated at all. It was very strange.

I’ve boiled it down to one or more of three possible reasons, and I have an opinion for each:

1. No one lives in those expensive houses any more.
2. They all went “Eco”
3. Black Christmas aka “Apocalypse Fever”

The first one is rather self explanatory, and probably the most reasonable assumption given the current economy and housing crisis. The likelihood of the second reason is somewhat diminished by the fact that many of these are the same people that drive their Hummers to Wal-mart. The third, (and the second, to a lesser degree) has a lot to do with the predominantly white republican devout Christians that live around here. Think the whole end of Religulous, but concentrated in one sermon every Sunday. This kind of “waiting for the end times” is the great unspoken ideal around here and probably near you as well, you just might not notice it. I envision a Pat-Robertson-esque father telling his children that Christmas is canceled because the rest of American voted in a black guy and something about the seven signs or wtf ever… maybe not the best vision to put in your head… sorry, I thought you needed something to replace the missing sugar plums

Maybe the whole thing comes down to a serious lack of marketing. Maybe the general feeling of Holiday Cheer® and commercial bombardment just go hand in hand. This year, instead of Tickle-me-Elmo’s, we have Cut-my-Wrist-Emo… and (s)he comes with a black Christmas tree:

I think its time for my annual reminder for those in the marketing industry. I think you know what to do, and you can take your little emo spawn with you. Now if you’ll pardon me, I have some kids to kick off my lawn…