It’s that time of the year and, dang nabbit, the commercials are going to start hitting me pretty hard. For some reason I don’t think television is the same as it used to be – none of the shows really have a hard hitting Christmas story. You know what I’m talking about. Like ‘My So Called Life’ with Julianna Hatfield. Yeah, all you younguns who didn’t know this show existed and who love 30 Seconds to Mars can feast your eyes on a young Jared Leto or a young, brooding Clare Danes. Oh, teen-aged angst in the 1990’s. Face it, you kids these days don’t even know the meaning of the word ’emo’. Hey, Mamie…if you want to borrow it I have the box set 😉

Bah. I’ve given up on television. I’ve found that television commercials capture my fancy more. I am soooooo fascinated by them. I’ve considered getting subscriptions to sites like Creativity-Online.com, but I don’t think that Angela would appreciate seeing the bills for all these advertising sites.

Angela: What are all these charges on the house credit card? Are you joining porn websites?!
Me: Huh? What? Well, not really. Um…
Angela: An escort service? PROSTITUTES?!
Me: Uh…no. Commercials. Advertisements. I have…I have a problem.
Angela: Can’t you be normal?

I just can’t help it. I’m complete mesmerized by how easily they can twist your emotions within 30 seconds so that you’re at the point of tears. For example, here are two of my favorite Hallmark commercials –

Waiting for Christmas

Every time I see this commercial I get all choked up. First, it reminds me of me when I grew up and moved out of the house. It reminds me of my dad and all the Christmases that we had together…and that we’ll never have them again. I can’t express how much I miss my dad; I can only hope that if you get along with your parents that you never, ever hesitate telling them how much they mean to you.

Ed’s Required Reading

Speaking of fathers, this one just decides to wrap it’s fingers around my heart strings and pull, pull, pull. Sometimes these stupid commercials make me want to become a dad so I could experience all of it. Then I go to IHOP on the weekend and I’m brought back to my senses.

So, all of this weepy, weepy, sniffle, sniffle stuff is great and all but I need to stress that I love the medium because it causes you to think. Emotions, thoughts, memories all come together to elicit some type of reaction, be it sympathy or anger, or laughter. After all the Hallmark commercials which kick me in the gut I’ll end with a favorite Ikea commercial of mine:

Ikea – Tidy Up

That just makes me smile 🙂