Santa? Give me a break

Gift certificates to Media Wave are a popular way to show your kids you understand them on a personal level, while proving that the true meaning of Christmas isn't about gifts or money but rather about love - a gesture best made with a generic gift card for exactly $20 dollars.

Aside from my fundamental problems with the idea of gift cards (although, when it comes to any other aspect of life, my usual motto is: the less thought and effort, the better), what made me laugh this gift season more than anything else was the following transaction between myself and an optimistic if not over zealous holiday shopper.

Me: How much would you like the gift certificate for?
Customer: Twenty dollars please
Me: Perfect. And is there anything else I should write on it?
Customer: put "from Santa"
Me: You know it says "Media Wave in Fairfield" right there on it, and not "The North Pole", right?
Customer: Yea, that's fine.

Now, trying to get your kids to believe that there is 1 old fat man who brings dozens of expensive toys that he and some elves have somehow made by hand in his workshop - toys these kids see on TV and in toy stores clearly made by brand manufacturers - to millions, if not billions of kids (but only the good ones), on one day and only one day once a year is already hard enough.

To think Santa even has enough energy for this exhausting feat of agility, despite his many degenerative health disorders from his morbid obesity and the fact that he is at least 500 years old and lives on a diet of milk and cookies, is ridiculous. Believe me, the people at Cookie Crisp cereal are lying - cookies, while delicious, are not so much nutritious, and do not provide you with what you need for a day's work.

Then parents expect their kids to believe that this one hard-working superman toymaker also happens to be available for 2 weeks before Christmas to appear in their very own local shopping mall, and logically, no one else's.

And on top of all that, they try to pass off a gift certificate for a store in their own town as being from Santa, despite how it is obviously sold exclusively to Media Wave customers. As if before he stopped of at little Timmy Smith's house, Santa went into the local video store and asked for a gift certificate. "It was the only thing on Timmy's list this year, and he was a very good boy", Santa would say.

But I guess it works, and that's what's wrong our nations children - they're dumbasses, and so are their parents. There I said it.

-Jordan