The Princeton Packet
‘Tis the season for complaints about the excessive commercialization of Christmas. Well, actually, ‘twas the season for that by the end of October. At that point, you could shop supermarkets and discount department stores for a Halloween costume, get 50 percent off the price of a lawn chair and pick up a set of twinkle lights for the tree. Announcements of frozen turkey specials were interspersed between Christmas carols on the public address systems.
If Charles Dickens were writing “A Christmas Carol” in 2007, Mr. Scrooge might have to be visited by three spirits on Labor Day — not an altogether inappropriate revision, given the man’s employment practices.
Still, in the face of a merchandising marathon that might as well be called “Hallowthanksgivingmas,” we probably ran the risk of seeming positively quaint on Tuesday, when our front page associated the annual Palmer Square tree lighting with the “official” start of the holiday shopping season.
Modern retailers and their advertising agencies get too little credit for inventing the all-purpose mega-holiday and its overriding goal of consumer inclusiveness. Conspiracy-crazed commentators see more potential — commercial potential, ironically — in dark warnings about ideological plots against Christmas.
A hearty “Bah, humbug” is tempting in the face of such book-peddling baloney, though the more appropriate retort is, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Perhaps, then, it is the quest for proper recognition of their achievement that drives the marketers to overkill. A posting to packetonline.com this week complained that last weekend’s tree lighting in Princeton “featured an annoying skit where two elves talked about various shopping opportunities at the Palmer Square retailers before the lights went on.”
The post adds, “The tree-lighting used to be commercial-free.”
Not likely, given that the tree sits in the middle of an outdoor shopping mall and the event is sponsored by merchants. But for that very reason, the organizers should probably ask themselves whether it was really necessary to have Santa’s little helpers remind the 2,500 merry-makers at the event that they were surrounded by store windows.
But who are we to second-guess? Given all this season-merging confusion, maybe the retailers were afraid the whole crowd would simply wander off through the streets of Princeton to go trick-or-treating.
