As Usual, Target > Kmart

Of course I am aware that some people object to the commercialization of Christmas, and to "Christmas creep," and to the pressures of enforced festivity, and I get it. But I LOVE CHRISTMAS, so I also love Christmas marketing, and I don't really care if it starts before Hallowe'en. I love Christmas Coke cans; I love Reese's Trees; I love the Oreos with the red and green cream.

I do not love the Kmart "GIFfing out" campaign.

I never really like it when commercials revolve around characters gloating about getting great deals, because talking about money is boring and tacky, and who cares: just tell us what percentage we're going to save and don't try to involve me in fictional shoppers' backstories when they come home with their hauls. But that's kind of beside the point in this case because the ads are so annoying.

What makes GIFs effective (and why, I think, Vine is already kind of fading away) is that they are silent! If we've learned anything from car alarms and/or from persistent and uncorrected children, it's that hearing the same thing over and over and over is fucking unbearable. So why anyone at Kmart's ad agency thought consumers would be won over by a campaign based on cheap-ass shoppers shrieking on a loop, I'm sure I don't know, because it's just not okay. (And the one with the grandma so happy about her bargains that she waves her walker around is the worst of all. Oh, now Kmart prices are so good they can heal infirmities? Cool.)

On the other side of the holiday divide is Target's "My Kind Of Holiday" campaign. There's a bunch of different spots, with wholly different jingles (all of which incorporate the tagline), but this is the one that compels me to look up at it whenever it plays on my desk TV.

Admittedly, regardless of the season, I already spend as much of my time as possible bunkered in my home. (I've been sick this week, which has only made this tendency more determined, but I got back from a trip midday on Sunday and I literally have not been outside since: true story.) But my favorite thing about Christmas is that nesting is encouraged. There aren't really any expectations except for you to stay in, eat snacks (special ones! Cookies and bars that no one ever makes at any other time of the year, and also clementines!), and watch TV; maybe, if there isn't too big an age gap among the gathered family members, you can get up a board game. And the reason this ad is so effective on me and my particular holiday needs/hopes is that it exactly captures that feeling. If it came on during an airing of The Family Stone, I think I would probably die and go to holiday heaven.

So thank you, Target, for so perfectly hyping me for the holiday that, as ever, can't come soon enough for me. Kmart, please don't try this GIF shit again next year. And since we're here: JC Penney, "Santa Baby" is gross.