Target : Hallmark

Each year around this time one company or another leaps out and asks for my ridicule, my scorn and my undying animosity. Two years ago Old Navy topped the list, with their annoying sing song commercials that claimed anyone who just gave cash to their loved ones during the holidays is a thoughtless (explicative deleted) head. Last year I was enraged walking into CVS days after Halloween in hopes of finding half priced candy only to find the place completely decorated for Christmas. The winner this year: Hallmark.

November 1st, (all saints day a holy day of obligation for any actual Christian religious types) the day after Halloween, I turn on my television and the first thing to assault my eyes during a commercial break is a Hallmark commercial. Here is the scene. It is a shot of an transportation (airport train, or bus I have no idea) terminal. Everyone looks tired and half dead. A screen shows delays and cancellations. Mom is sitting there with her depressed children. She has an idea. (you can tell because here eyes get wide) She takes a plastic holiday thing out of her carry on bag. She presses a button. It sings. It dances. Everyone in the terminal is happy. The Holiday is saved.

(Explicative deleted) that noise.

It offends me on so many levels I don't even know where to start. I'll go with the obvious. The date. It's like the people at hallmark were almost pushing the kids in the costumes off the streets in an attempt to hit their target audience just one more minute earlier. Once upon a time the Friday after thanksgiving was the official marketing Christmas kick off. It was black Friday. The day many retailers went from a financial loss (red) all year long into the loving black of profit. Now we can not wait for Halloween to end. It is cutting into the shopping season.

Next there is the entire annoying singing plastic piece of garbage. Why is this the centerpiece of the Hallmark image. They sell greeting cards. Yet for the past few years they have made a huge deal out of their special annoying holiday item. They may be cute the first time you press play, but that is it. Never ever let a child have one. That is like begging to hear the same stupid songs over and over until the kid either breaks it or the batteries wear out. (Or you bust out the old shot gun and send that thing back to its maker).

Next it is the entire sales technique. Buy five Hallmark cards and you can qualify to buy the annoying plastic piece of fecal matter at a reduced price. What a bargain. If I send in five cereal box tops can I get a pay ten dollars to have it shipped to me?

If I were still a practicing Catholic I'd probably be angry about the complete lack of religious sentiment in the company's treatment of the Holiday. As I'm not, It doesn't really bother me, I just like to bring it up to annoy the Bill O'Reilly types who think it is people like me making "war" on Christmas.

For all of this Hallmark must suffer from my Holiday wrath. I refuse to buy from them this year. I ask everyone else to do the same. Sure their competitors are probably equally bad, but they didn't step in the doggy do the way Hallmark did.

On a similar not I ask y'all to at least look at the Buy Nothing Day Website and the larger idea Buy Nothing Christmas. It can't hurt to read about a little idealistic activism.

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