Good morning, Netizens...

Have you noticed the larcenous ease with which we have migrated from the political attack advertisements during the election campaigns to the self-serving saccharine sweet Christmas advertisements? This is part of a planned event called advertising.

As in previous years, each year the date Christmas advertising begins hitting the airwaves seems to draw closer to July Fourth and predictably enough, each year I complain more mightily about how we seem to have entirely lost sight of the meaning of our once-sacred holidays.

Even those demarcations of shopping holidays, such as Black Friday, which if one follows the tradition, takes place on the day after Thanksgiving Day have already been expediently moved up the calendar this year. All the big sales, those offering steep discounts for Christmas Shoppers, have already begun; and here we are, still several weeks ahead of Thanksgiving, and several major vendors are already advertising Black Friday sales and it isn't even Friday.

Additionally, while we adults have been practicing economic survival, attempting to keep/get decent jobs ahead of the holidays, maybe save a buck or two in the process, McDonald's has been pitching intense advertising at our kids. Of course I've seen this move coming. However you would never catch me eating in a McDonald's. There are, thank God, enough high-quality eateries left in this town I need not look past my list of favorite places.

Everybody has their hands out this pre-Christmas Shopping Season. How do you tell the difference between our run-of-the-mill scam artists, bunco chimps who have no moral values whatsoever about stealing from you or assaulting your body and our typical Christmas scammers? That one's easy. Look for the festive Santa hat, tinsel in their hair and listen for the jolly “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and check your calendar to see if it is really Christmas yet.

Of course, your results may differ.

Dave

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