The NC Double Scrooge: Shopping Division
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on December 9, 2010 – 12:25 PM92 Comments
We begin our roast of Christmas present in the retail ring. Have we left things out? Probably. That’s what the comment section is for. And therapy. And bourbon.
Remember, vote for your worst three (3). Poll will stay open a while. Tell a friend.
NC Double Scrooge, Shopping Division: Please Pick The Three (3) WORST
- People who brag endlessly that they're already done with their shopping (12%, 450 Votes)
- The shopping itself (11%, 395 Votes)
- Shitty gifts and the Oscar-worthy acting job you must do upon receiving them (10%, 394 Votes)
- The Salvation Army Santa incessantly ringing that goddamn bell (10%, 389 Votes)
- Cat- or dog-related gifts that make it clear this is the only aspect of your personality most people are aware of (you may substitute another repetitive theme to suit) (9%, 345 Votes)
- Trying to find the most creative, most perfect gift for each person on your list before giving up and sending everyone Hickory Farm gift baskets (9%, 325 Votes)
- People who complain endlessly that they haven't started their shopping (6%, 208 Votes)
- Crossing someone off your to-buy-for list forever, only to finally get a gift from him/her and have to rustle up a gift in response (5%, 193 Votes)
- Crappy, overly fragile wrapping paper that frays on cutting (5%, 178 Votes)
- Trying to wrap presents when you suck at it (5%, 172 Votes)
- Tracking last-minute presents and praying your shit gets there on time (4%, 165 Votes)
- "Yeah, we know it was featured in [media outlet], but we didn't think ahead so it's on backorder, sor-reeeee" (3%, 122 Votes)
- Getting buried in catalogs (3%, 113 Votes)
- The returns process (2%, 86 Votes)
- "Rush" shipping that isn't (2%, 76 Votes)
- Can't your boss just buy her own gift? (2%, 73 Votes)
- Amazon counting down the days you have left to send something and still have it get there in time (1%, 43 Votes)
- Drunk department-store Santas; the line to see them; the terrified wailing they cause (1%, 26 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,283
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Tags: NC Double Scrooge shut up Lucy Danziger winter-holiday agita
I actually don’t mind the shopping, but I really hate the parking. It’s either endless circling with occasional frantic swerve and following people who are only dropping off presents before returning or it’s sudden bursts of adrenalin as you race people to the car that’s just put its reversing lights on, only to return to the circling when you miss the space. Either way I hate it with a passion. Also? I don’t care that it’s the festive season, you can’t save a parking space by standing in it. Even if you are a little old lady. Yelling at me in Greek is not going to change that either (granted I probably shouldn’t have yelled back in Dutch, but it seemed fair at the time). It probably would have irritated me less had there not been other parking spots available, including the one right next to me (it was very early – I learned from previous years) and had she not stood in front of me as I was actually pulling into the space. Good way to give me a heart attack, lady, pop out of nowhere in front of my (slowly) moving car. Sheesh.
The Salvos here don’t ring bells, thank God, they form brass quartets and play Christmas carols instead. Which is entertaining when your 3 year old niece manages to somehow cause 3 of 4 of them to start giggling, leaving only the tuba line going (his vision was apparently obstructed). “Once in Royal Davids City” sounds very different with only occasional bass blurtings.
@Mystery Amanda – “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is seriously the best song ever. Especially after a couple of glasses of wine, it’s still illogical, bad at geography and maybe a teeny bit on the racist side, but oh so fun to sing and giggle at.
As far as working retail, I worked in a Major Book Retailer for years and it was pretty bad sometimes, but my co-workers and I were usually able to have a good laugh and a “can you top THIS one” session afterwards. I do go out of my way to be extra-polite to people working retail this time of year, though. When I go out to shop, which is rare because I’m afraid of the other shoppers.
Heh. We have observed in my house that the upside-down part of Jane Seymour’s Open Heart necklace totally looks like a butt.
Mystery A: The only reason the Christmas music at my store (where there is Magic) doesn’t annoy me too much is that their soundtrack for the rest of the year is a billion times worse. That said, I will never, ever defend the Eartha Kitt version of “Santa Baby.” Gives me the creeps. I heard it three times in one shift last year, too. Horrible.
Okay, I actually like the SA bell ringers. Call me a loon. I also can’t get enough of “Feliz Navidad”. (Yes, really!)
However, what I cannot stand are the following:
The endless shitty reworkings of Christmas songs that weren’t that great to begin with by whomever is currently trendy. Or worse, shitty reworkings of really classic Christmas songs/hymns by one of these no-talent cookie cutter “performers”.
Commercials in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Bastards.
That goddamn television ad with the jackass who raises the garage door and turns on the headlights of his luxury car during the neighborhood Christmas light display. I keep waiting for one of his neighbors to huck a brick through the windshield.
The apparent abandonment of the “giving tree” concept. I just want to pluck a tag or two off the tree, buy some gifts for some kids and return them to be distributed. Why the hell doesn’t anybody (around here, at least) do that anymore? I know I could do the Toys for Tots thing, but that’s not quite the same to me.
And finally … the “Keep Christ in Christmas” nuts. Seriously – I have a relative who RETURNED my card last year because it said “Warm Wishes for a Beautiful Holiday Season”, and enclosed a note saying that she “only celebrates Christmas” this time of year, and then sealed her envelope with a big ol’ (home printed) “Keep Christ in Christmas” sticker. Needless to say, I’m saving a stamp this year.
@Jennifer A FRIEND gave you a wish list?! That is so not on.
UPS: Opened a package we mailed to my MIL. Stole one thing out of it, closed it back up and delivered it. What did they steal? A wrapped DVD. What was the movie? “To Catch a Thief.” O, the irony.
(To be fair, we don’t know if UPS is the Cat or if someone who saw the package on her front step did it.)
Oh, and you know those other Kay Jewelers commercials that sing “Every kiss begins with Kay”?
We have our own version in my house: “Every poop begins with pee.” Because we are not 37, we are 12.
I can’t think of anything to add, I just want to say how much fun I’m having reading this. I’m getting funny looks from the other people in the cafe because I keep laughing.
Frosty the Snowman needs to make out with a hair dryer.
Omg jewelry commercials! Jewelry commercials and car commercials! Hey, guys, despite being female I actually want neither so can we please shut up with the stupid diamonds and Lexii kthxbye.
….I would, however, accept one of those giant-ass bows they put on the cars. …just to have. For funsies. The kitties’ little heads would explode.
Hasta la vista, Frosty! The shrill tone of the women singing “thumpity-thump thump thump-i-tee thump” in the Frosty song sets my teeth on edge.
I guess I’m one of those annoying people that doesn’t really answer when people ask what I want for Christmas. Especially now that I’m older…the things I really want (rent money, a vacation) are just too ridiculous to ask for. I don’t need the little trinkets and stuff that I’m supposed to say. My dad has been asking me, and finally I told him that I need some shoes, thinking that maybe he’d get me a giftcard to Macy’s or something, but he replied back “What color? What size?” I appreciate his effort, but now I’m kind of terrified to think of what my dad will come up with when trying to buy me, a 33-year-old woman, a pair of shoes. Black, size 7, still leaves a whole lot of margin for error!
Hee, the image of Frosty sucking face with a hairdryer is making me think of Dementors in reverse.
I worked at a Fancy Paper Store for a summer, and got spoiled on Fancy Wrapping Paper, which means that I cringe extra-hard at fraying wrapping paper, and also can’t conceive of wrapping presents without double-stick tape. And because I can’t afford Fancy Wrapping Paper and can never manage to possess double-stick tape for more than a week before losing it, I end up complaining about my wrapping paper all Christmas season long, because I am a paper goods snob. I probably brought it on myself anyway.
The open heart things all look like baby butts to me. Not romantic or gifty.
Also, in annoying present behaviors of loved ones, my partner sees things that he might like, tells me them-and then buys them for himself. WTF?
@Soylent Green: I still keep my journal on paper so I shouldn’t mind the fancy books…but I’ve gotten into fountain pens over the last several years. And guess what, everyone who buys me fancy, bound journals because “[I’m] always writing?” A lot of those fancy journals don’t work so well with fountain pen ink. And I’m picky about notebooks anyway. I appreciate the thought, thank you very much…but it’s okay. Really. I don’t want you feeling like you wasted your money on something I might not use.
On the opposite end, my (not at all techy) aunt gave me a wireless mouse for my MacBook one year. That was one of the best gifts ever :)
The Jane Seymour open hearts necklace looks like a snake preparing to strike. Merry Christmassssss!
Oh man, Elsajeni, my grandma is the QUEEN of that. It used to just be that she would guilt my mom (who would inevitably be super-busy) to go with her to the mall so my mom could pick out my grandma’s present to my mom. But last year she recruited me to pick out her present to my new husband – can’t we just get a gift card?
Another painful thing – again, one that my mom has to deal with more than I do. Whenever my mom gets my cousin/her nephew a gift, it seems like 2/3 times my aunt will just send it back for my mom to return because “he doesn’t want it” – because he already has everything in the universe that a 13-year-old boy could ever want. So… my mom has to return it. Fun.
Also, Keckler, I love the jewelry modification. Our own modification is to the stupid Open Heart Collection with Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Since the design looks like nothing more than it looks like two butts, we just substitute in the word “butt” whenever she says “heart.” “When you leave your butt open, love will always find a way in.”
Has anyone heard the Christmas “song” Dominick the Donkey? Eeeeeuw.
Jewelry commercials! OMG, whoever sold the rights to “Seasons of Love” to a jewelry store, I hope Jonathon Larson comes back and bitch slaps you from the grave!
Struggling, as if through cold syrup, through slow-moving herds of people, while assaulted on all sides by obnoxious Christmas doof-doof “music” (we use the term loosely here)
Interestingly, in my culture, it’s considered rude to open a gift in front of the giver; a)the giver doesn’t get to feel like the recipient is more interested in the gift than the giver, and b)this spares the recipient from having to put on the Oscar-worthy performance (and the giver from the realisation that s/he has given a dud gift!)
My two cents :)
Oh, the jewelry store commercials kill me, but I haaaaate the car commercials this time of year. My husband actually looks for them because he finds my ranting so amusing. Why would you buy a luxury vehicle for your wife without consulting her? That’s a major purchase! Major purchases need to be agreed upon by both parties! Not “man manage money, wife giggle prettily.” Hmph.
@Elsajeni, I bet your Dad gets you a gift card this year. From a store that isn’t located near you, or that doesn’t stock your size/style/preference. But for your sake, I hope maybe I’m a little bit wrong.
My own favorite “worst” seems to be diminishing on its own: those animated, electronic-voiced singing Tree/Santa/Snowman/Elf/etc. figures that would blast a really tinny sort of Christmas carol at you from every store shelf. I would have gladly paid good money for the privilege of whacking the dam’ things to pieces.
Yes to the “here’s a journal because you’re a writer, remember?” thing! Yeah, I do my writing in $5 Staples notebooks. Don’t drop $20 on a leather-bound book with purple paper.
@Suze – Some churches still do the giving tree thing (we always called it Angel Tree). My church has adopted a nearby apartment complex with a lot of single moms and low-income families. Last weekend my mom and I dropped $150 for two kids. Shopping for those kids is always one of the highlights of Christmas.
The fucking Salvation Army is going down!
That sounds way harsh, I know, but I’d totally give you some money if you stopped ringing that god damned bell!
@Rachel:
I am that person. And to Amazon I say, “I KNOW how many days I (don’t) have left! STOP MOCKING ME!”
Jenn, my husband and I finally got everyone in our immediate families doing the Amazon wishlist thing. It’s great to know most of our gifts will be things we actually want/need/will use/enjoy.
I’m loving the comments on the open heart jewelry! It looks like a messed up Z to me, not pretty. I am a person who likes jewelry a lot and love to recieve it as a gift, but it’s pretty unrealistic to expect diamonds for Christmas! They cost a fortune! And there are other stones out there that are just as pretty. I also hate the luxury car as a gift commericials with a passion. Really? 32 grand for a gift? Not in my world.
Suze in CO, i’m adding your story about your Aunt to my Big Book of WOW. And as someone mentioned we call the Giving Tree the Angel tree here, and I love to pick a kid every year. I’m actually dropping off my things this afternoon. I’ve had a great time shopping for her. Toys for tots is great, but buying for a specific child is more fun to me.
And yes to cat/dog/lotion gifts! I have so much lotion and body spray I will never use. I hardly use lotion at all, much less the super perfumey stuff.
I read that much too quickly and was like, “Ew, there’s CAT LOTION?”
Sars: That is too funny! I don’t know though, there may be such a thing for those hairless cats!
Trufax – my dog loves hand lotion. If you put it on she will be come over and lick your hands like a maniac. So I can’t speak to cat lotion, but dog lotion, yes.
1) I am a soccer player, so I have received roughly 1,000 soccer themed presents. Including a soccer themed jewelry box, which leads to…
2) My uncle used to believe that more things to open = better, but still wanted to spend the same amount of money. So I used to get things like: squeaky dog toys in the shape of vegetables, watch pens that “just needed a battery”, plastic trolls with light up eyes, model rockets which were illegal to fire in my state and, once, a rolling ruler. My shelf of academy awards is pretty damn full…
I don’t mean to be a pain, but the current percentages of the votes add up to 192%.
Eh, I’d prefer a wish list any day to people who want a present but won’t tell me what. Wish lists are awesome when you are crappy at intuiting other people’s gift needs. I just wish it was uh… not your fantasy wish list of all time if you were asking your millionaire pal for a gift.
I don’t know about the customer is always right, but the Christmas customer is always selfish. Man, do I hate interacting with people at shopping centers at this time of year.
@Ferretrick, is that the one from “Rent?” The song about gay people dying of AIDS? Yessiree, Happy Holidays, straight people!
@ferretrick – I think that’s because people can vote for up to 3 options.
Apparently, the lower part of the Open Heart is indeed a butt:
Artistically, the image is a stylized version of two open hearts forming a female figure, the initials JS, and has been recently coined “Dancing Hearts” in tribute to the work she and Tony Dovolani have done on Dancing with the Stars.
The image at the bottom of that page looks like two butts kissing. I’m kind of appalled.
Biggest, deepest, most serious holiday-hate is the endless-loop Xmas soundtrack in every store, especially the ones that began in September. I actually love Christmas music, particularly by the Rat Pack and especially by my partner cutting loose with the jazzy arrangements on piano. My first job, however, was in a store that had two (and only two) four-hour looping Xmas tapes. We were allowed to play nothing else from September to January. Consequently, about two million of my brain cells have been permanently altered, and will never be able to hold data other than Elevator Music Christmas.
20+ years later, I’m still appalled.
@Jen S: Yep, that’s the one. Within the context of the play, its more about people surviving AIDS and celebrating life, then dying from it, but still. It’s anything but meant to be used tritely in crass marketing campaigns.
@Lori: The only thing I don’t like about my engagement ring is that it came from Jared’s, and it’s precisely because of that commercial. (Nevermind that I’m the one who picked it out and chose to walk in the store in the first place…)
I think the (shopping-related) thing that bothers me most is trying to do regular shopping and getting stuck in holiday shopping. Parking sucks, too. Oddly, when doing holiday shopping, I don’t mind the crowds themselves so much, because I expect it to be crowded. It’s when I don’t expect it that it really bugs me, or feel it’s a place that shouldn’t be getting the holiday buzz.
But to get really specific, I hate the way malls echo with the screams of stressed, overexcited kids. (I worked a calendar kiosk mid-mall for a number of years. Oh, the echoes… gah.)
I’m actually okay on the shopping front: it helps that I do most of mine online, or in teeny Maine towns when I go home for Thanksgiving, and that I only have seven people to seriously shop for. (Don’t deal with extended family, thank God–Mom sends ’em all gift baskets, I think–and my friends and I operate on an “if you see something awesome and can afford it” basis.)
On the other hand, I hate jewelry commercials. And I find something about the expectation of buying a gift for the person who has immense power over your job–and makes twice your paycheck, probably–rather offensive.
Also not on the list: the (eternal everloving) present wrapping.
I don’t mind coming up with what everyone will get. I don’t even mind the shopping (hordes of rude people and all).
What I DO mind is the wrapping. I’ve married into a huge family – think nearly twenty people, all getting presents. I have also married into It Is The Wife’s Job To Make Christmas Happen, Including All The Shopping, Wrapping, Packaging And Mailing. Guess what? It’s all a serious amount of work!
I once asked my husband to at least keep me company while I worked. He did, but griped seriously about it. [grits teeth hard]
So, I Make Christmas Happen every year. This year involved lots of loud (angry) dance music and cookies. (And perhaps a bit of alcohol!) I do lament the fact that this makes me feel very Grinch-like. I used to love Christmas. I still like it, but that liking is very much tempered by the fact that it’s also lots of hard work.
Wrapping is in the poll, in two different iterations.