Kindly Póg Mo Thóin

13 Responses to “Happy consumermas!”

1. 1 Deborah
   Dec 12th, 2007 at 9:48 pm

   This is one of the times I am most thankful for my Tivo. Of course, one of my favorite gifts was homemade snickerdoodle cookies - a friend of mine remembered me saying how much I liked them as a child and made them for me as a birthday gift. I’ve also never gotten a “luxury” gift, so what do I know?

2. 2 MikeEss
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 6:47 am

   The top 1% has so much money these days they don’t know what to do with it. Those ads are just “helpful” suggestions…

3. 3 Stephanie
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 7:23 am

   My dad’s given my mom a few pieces of jewelry for Christmas . . . each piece never cost more than $100-$120, though, and it was pretty much the sum total of her gifts. (Gold necklace, bracelet, a couple pairs of earrings . . .)

   $6500+ for a 3-stone ring? Hell, no.

   You’d also have to have some pretty severe separation of finances in order to buy something like, oh, A CAR for Christmas. That’s a little more than my parents’ “hey, don’t look at the check register too hard” theory.

4. 4 FashionablyEvil
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 7:36 am

   I have always wondered if Lexus sees any results from their “December to Remember Sales Event.” However, it seems to have been going on for several years, so I suppose it works. But really, if my husband ever gave me a car as a surprise Christmas gift, I’d kill him (well, maybe just divorce him). If purchases that big aren’t discussed in advance, well, I think there’s a problem with that. (Or else these people just have waaaaaaaaay more money that I do and buy each other trinkets like luxury cars all the time).

5. 5 Tina
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 7:46 am

   At my household, our idea of a luxury gift was buying a much needed computer. I agree with FashionablyEvil: if my husband gave me a surprise car they’d have to look pretty hard for the body. Jewelry doesn’t really go over that well in our house either (I’d rather have a harddrive, and so would he)… unless it’s a Green Lantern ring.

6. 6 ks
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 8:07 am

   What Fashionably Evil said. I don’t know anyone with that kind of money to throw around that one or the other of the couple wouldn’t get seriously pissed if a luxury car just showed up in the driveway with a giant bow on it. If my husband did it, there would be many calls to divorce lawyers in his future.

7. 7 Jenonymous
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 8:51 am

   Ditto RE Fashionably Evil.

   Me, I am just really jonesing for a Wii, which I know I won’t get, but will then buy for myself once the season is over.

8. 8 Jay
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 9:09 am

   My mother actually did once buy a car for my father, but it wasn’t as a holiday gift - he was driving sports car that was killing his back and she traded it in for a sedan. Not a pleasant surprise. He did buy her pieces of very significant jewelry, usually for significant birthdays, and I don’t know how he managed the money since she did the checkbook and he usually didn’t even have lunch money. Dad loved buying big presents for Mom, because he knew she wouldn’t do it for herself.

   I wouldn’t complain about getting a car if I knew we had the money, but then if I knew we had the money I would buy one myself.

   Honestly, it’s the ads for expensive but not “highest-end” stuff like the huge TVs that bother me. I figure if people can really afford to buy a Lexus for Christmas that’s their lookout, and they won’t usually let you buy one unless you have adequate credit and funds - but the amount of usurious credit card debt that’s generated buying outsized electronics is really scary.

   That said, I do actually want a flat-screen TV, and I hate myself for it.

9. 9 preying mantis
   Dec 13th, 2007 at 12:52 pm

   My husband and I actually had this conversation when two of those stupid car ads ran right in a row. A new car is a remarkably complicated thing to buy as a surprise present, even if you’re completely loaded. It doesn’t make a lick of sense not to not make the person you’re getting it for extremely involved in the process. It’s not like you can just take it back if it’s the wrong color or doesn’t come with the features they wanted, and that’s assuming that a) they want a new car and b) you know the model and year of the car that they want.

   Jewelry, on the other hand, I can at least see. It’s got a lot of potential problems if you’re buying it for someone because it’s shiny and everybody loves shiny stuff, right? But there’s less room for egregious error if you know their tastes, and you can take it back if it turns out to have been a bad idea.

   I imagine the sort of people who can afford to give a hugely expensive luxury Christmas present as a surprise aren’t the sort of people who are inspired by ads, though. It strikes me as more a ploy to generate demand in people who can’t afford them, but who can afford items that are a couple rungs down. Kay may not actually see a return on their ad fees when they look at sales of $1,000 diamond tennis bracelets, but if they can get enough people buying $200 bracelets whether they can afford them or not, it’s been worth their while.

10. 10 Mnemosyne
    Dec 14th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

    I kinda like the MasterCard ad where the guy wins matching cars. Sure, it’s encouraging you to run up more credit card debt in order to win something that you have about a 1 in a million chance of winning (if that), but at least the point is that he *won* them so it’s supposed to be a surprise.

    Jewelry ads bug me because I don’t wear jewelry and it’s always presented as the default gift. My husband complains that I’m hard to buy for because I don’t wear jewelry, but as long as he keeps the Marie Antoinette Action Figures coming, I don’t care.

11. 11 Mnemosyne
    Dec 21st, 2007 at 12:33 pm

    Completely off-topic (except for the whole Christmas thing), but I bet zuzu would love to knit herself a fun fur Christmas tree. Especially if it can be pink, yes?

12. 12 Zuzu
    Dec 21st, 2007 at 7:31 pm

    OHMYGODTHAT’SFABULOUS!

13. 13 exholt
    Dec 22nd, 2007 at 9:20 pm

    Luxury cars, no. Expensive pieces of jewelery, however, are commonly given as gifts by many past co-workers and even a few undergrads at my current institution who are rolling in the trust-fund dough. The former end up running up massive credit card debts while the latter group rarely gives it much thought because if they ever become financially strapped, their wealthy parents will almost always bail them out.

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