Christmas is my favorite time of year, I spend way too much money giving people gifts and wrapping them.
But...I don't just wrap my presents, I like make little surprises with the way I wrap things.

For instance this year, I got a few gift cards....simple enough right? They come with an envelope usually so you just seal the envelope and/or wrap them.
But not me. I think they're too easy to guess.

I've got a Fun Tan envelope, with a Hollister gift card holder, and inside that is NOTHING! Its an empty gift! It will only make opening the other gifts that much better I think

Next gift is a box for an old Pokemon Ball, with lots of packing peanuts in it, and finally at the bottom the Hollister gift card. POKEMON EWWWW oh wait a gift card!

SAW II is wrapped normally...I gotta have one normal wrapped present, "oh great a DVD" no guess work there. But wait...what about SAW?

SAW Is in an empty 24pack soda box. Looks big right? Got a nice hint on it though..."TO: ..." and "From: *Jigsaw symbol*"

Fun Tan gift certificate is hidden inside a small "Coin Collection" thats actually just pennies I found in my room. Gotta look a little bit to find the gift certificate

and whats a gift for a female without some Victoria's Secret? ANOTHER Empty 24pack soda box, with a "From: *Jigsaw symbol*" well it must be SAW right? Opened up the second one already its gotta be SAW! Wait a minute...Jigsaw gave a....Victoria's Secret bag with a piece of string in it? "Oh thats underwear" DOUBLE WHAMMY!

So where is that Victoria's Secret gift card? Well for those that don't know...the Victoria's Secret gift cards come in a nice little thing that can fit a Blank CD perfectly. So the package says Victoria's Secret, the inside is a CD...and the gift card just needs a little more digging to find.




So....who else likes to spice up Christmas a little bit by not just taking the present and blandly wrapping them?

When a friend of mine turned 16, I went all over town buyin ugly, gaudy, cheap keychains. Ended up with like 30 of them, which I then strung all together, and hung on a wire inside a fairly large cardboard box, with a smaller cardboard box taped inside of it that contained pennies and marbles. When she shook the box, it made all kinds of bizarre noises, was weighted oddly and shifted all over the place. One area was consistently heavy (the marble/penny box) while the rest of it was light or shifting as the keychains moved and jangled.

In fact, I think she actually dropped it the first time she tried shaking it because the weight shifting was so unexpected.

If that wasn't clear, here's a diagram:

I hate christmas with every fiber of my being.

The only person I'm even going to consider getting a gift for is my best friend who got me the Alphabet of Manliness.

Who are you buying Victoria's Secret for?

You can go the easy way add red-colored gel "leaking" out of the wrapped presents. People would never guess what's inside...



"Every child
Down in Masssassi
Liked Christmas a lot...

But Freelancer,
Who lived just north of the internet,
Did NOT!

Freelancer hated Christmas!
The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. We already heard the reasons.
It could be that he wasn't being screwed every night.
It could be, perhaps, that his pants were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his postcount was two sizes too small."

[sub] I suck at making paradies[/sub]

<3 the grinch.

(and the current holiday logo as I posdt this is the grinch one.)

I just lost any respect I had for you, internet stranger.

It's mostly because I work retail and it disgusts me how commercialized Christmas is. To see such a massive shift in the consumerism of people because of a holiday makes me sick.

...because they shift from buying random crap for themselves to buying random crap for everyone else?

A ~1000% increase isn't just a fleeting shift. It's pretty noticeably over-the-top.

(And I'd like to point out it's not a simple shift --- it's a large increase. We could take all the man hours that go into Christmas consumerism and do something extraordinary. Instead, we have millions of production, engineering, marketing, business, and retail jobs that wouldn't exist without Christmas).

1) "man" hours? I think women also work.

2) Your argument is that Christmas consumerism is bad because it creates jobs? Has it ever occurred to you that the opportunity for these people to work and earn money is probably the best part about Christmas?

3) What extraordinary thing do you have in mind? It takes specialized individuals to cure cancer. You can actually make the same argument about ANY consumerism that happens in America, I don't know when consumerism becomes "excessive" or when it officially trades off with doing good.

4) If people weren't doing Christmas shopping for others, then they would be spending their "end of the year" bonuses for other reasons. Let's face it, Christmas isn't stopping people from being charitable. In fact, organizations like Salvation Army have been able to use Christmas to create new opportunities for donations that don't exist year round.

5) Christmas season provides the majority of sales in retail. Period. Their whole business year banks on the sales, so if not for Christmas, I'm not sure if you'd have a job.

6) Maybe you should get a new job because I'm pretty sure you can be spending your entire year doing better things than working retail. Join the peacecorps. Write a book about the racist capitalist institution. Sell alcohol to minors. Do something that makes a difference.

7) Give me a break, Christmas is awesome. It promotes the best aspects of capitalist society. We are all members of the same consumer capitalist regime, and within that system we can recognize that all the work that we do, every boring day in the office, every hour spent on a time card... All of that work, it doesn't just go down the drain. We can use the money earned through that capitalist economy to show other people that we are all in this together, and that we care not just about our own consumption, but theirs as well. Charlie Brown, that's what Christmas is all about.


In short, Marx is wrong and capitalism is still the best economic system that exists.

Man is often used in referance to all of humanity. And besides, what are you going to say? Man and woman hours? Human hours?

[QUOTE=Jedi Legend]1) "man" hours? I think women also work.[/quote]
Man hours just sounds asininely cool. Women hours doesn't.


I'm not arguing that Christmas consumerism is bad because it creates jobs. I'm arguing that Christmas consumerism is bad because it creates the wrong kinds of jobs. Thousands of hours go into absolutely nothing except sustaining a completely non-necessary drain on society. Okay --- so Christmas creates jobs? So what? We don't need those jobs if we could just drop the Christmas consumerism habit, and those people could do something worthwhile besides making sure Johnny gets that RC car that will break four hours after getting it on Christmas morning.


It also takes a little breadth to cure cancer. You can't do much of anything unless you can tie broad concepts from many disciplines together. Ultraspecialists are devoted to a narrow focus and may miss a lot other could bring. Take Farnsworth for example. He was out farming when the idea came to him.

Consumerism becomes excessive when it hinders the greater good for society. People buy metric ton-loads of crap and produce metric ton-loads of crap when what needs to really be done is advance society in a positive direction. It's all pointless. You engineer, market, and sell useless crap. Then you turn around and buy that useless crap on the pretense that you "have to" because of a holiday. It's almost like an IOU. You agree to purchase X amount of crap that you wouldn't have otherwise bought had you had your right mind about you.


I think it's likely we would be far more able to live within our means if it weren't for Christmas. And it's far more likely they would do something more worthwhile with their money than pissing it away.


Correction: under current operating practices, most retail stores depend on Christmas to pull them out of a loss and into profit. If Christmas didn't exist, stores would be different. They'd operate with fewer expenses. That's not a bad thing.

No argument there. Not sure why you brought it up, though.


But it's not the best economic system that doesn't exist.

Your mom doesn't exist

"man" originally just meant "a human", regardless of sex/gender. It still does, in addition to the "adult male human" definition. The "original" word for "adult male human" was "wer", which is still with us in the word "werewolf".

2.



So, I'm still sort of waiting for the alternative to working in retail for these individuals.

Also, do you really think these people put a drain on society when we have accountants who are basically non-productive employees handling nothing except tax law? I say get rid of progressive taxation, not Christmas!



3.



Umm, yes, but the people you are talking about are not going to do be able to provide that breadth. They are retail employees, not typically those who can make contributions to science.

But if they are, then: I'm not going to look up your example, but I'm guessing Farnsworth could have also come up with his idea while checking out a toy at a retail store.

Also cancer was just the example, my point is that Christmas is not what's holding people back from doing extraordinary things, I'm guessing if they could do something better for society, then they would. Otherwise, they have to work SOMEWHERE in capitalist America which is generally not aimed at your nebulous notion of the extraordinary.




I guess you really aren't a Marxist since you're using utility to measure the value of products and not labor. Nice.

Anyway, I get kind of wary when people talk about progress. Why do we always assume society is moving forward and not backward? Progress is so hopelessly subjective....

Hey, speaking of subjective, what the hell makes something useful? This present increases the happiness of a person. Perhaps the object itself makes them happy, or maybe it's just the understanding that someone cares about them enough to
but it for them. Either way, I'd say that these gifts do have utility in the pleasure they produce. You're still not curing cancer, by the way. In the meantime, Merry Christmas.


4.



Except that if you refer to something I said earlier in the post, people will still have "End of the Year" bonuses to spend. Christmas bonuses don't exist for Christmas, they exist because at the end of the year, it's time for companies to pay up their employees some of the profit. Now, a lot of people use a lot of their Christmas bonus to be wild consumers. Without Christmas, they still have this money.

Even if people go into debt for Christmas, Christmas is not what's breaking people's backs. Christmas does not cause people to live outside their means more than, say, the winter heating bill. People have money; they want to spend it on stuff. Get over it!


5.



Your correction feeds my argument. Hey, I'm just arguing in favor of you having a job, Free. If they have to cut back on expenses, I sure hope your job isn't on the chopping block.

It's better that people have a job (means) than that they learn to live within their means (which is to say, no means at all). Granted, I know a lot of retail workers are dependents.

JOBS ARE GOOD! Even if they are "worthless" jobs. Jobs give people purchasing power, which drives the economy. A good economy is GOOD for progress. Where do you think the money that goes into investing in new technology and science comes from? Businesses invest when the economy grows, and they take out investment firsts when the economy stops.


6.



Honestly, I probably shouldn't. The fact that you work in retail doesn't mean you have to like it. But, at least know that I don't share your opinion. Free, I think you're adding a valuable service to society even if you don't think so. I worked in a grocery store, I know it's not a lot of fun.

And don't forget that Christmas is the greatest thing capitalism has ever brought.

Merry Christmas!

That's the thing though. Back in the day. "man" DID mean "human". But back then, an "adult male human" was a werman and an "adult female human" was a wifman. At some point, the "wer" pre-fix was dropped from it and "man" become sufficient to refer to just a "male adult human." Why, then, does the word "man" not refer to a "female adult human"? The reason is that "male" is generically thought of when we think of a person and the "female" is seen a secondary entity to the male. That's why using archaic constructions such as "man" generically is just spreading the sexism into contemporary society.

That said, the idea that "man" can function as both generic human (IE referring to men and women) AND as a delineation between the two sexes/genders (men and not women) makes it kind of a sketchy term. Even the Romans used the word "vir" (this is actually where 'wer' is derived) for "man" and homo for "human". And they were a pretty bad culture, not going to lie.

Apologies for the digression. Back to Christmas cheer!


Edit: I'm not an authority on etymology, so I'll cite: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/022.html

so, about christmas presents. me and my brother like to go back and forth, and around and around with this sort of stuff.

last year he asked me what i wanted... i was hungry at the time so i said some macroni.... and that's what he dicided to get me for chirstmas.... he got me some easy mack, some gormet' macroni noodles, and a movie titled macroni (it was terrable). (he and my boyfriend went in togther to get me a real gift of nice computer speakers, but i didtnt know that for a few days later).

this year we are getting our new brother in law, and our cousin.
my sister married this guy, and i think we both finally except him in the family, so... for my sisters birthday in october we got her a bunch of figurines from the move Curse of the Ware Wrabbet (Wallice and Gromet). we got her about five or six of them and thay were all about 2 or 3 inches high. at the same time we purcoced thoes, we got her husband his chirstmas present: the 12 foot tall ugly wrabbit whitch goes with the set. it's going to be wonderful. (and that's all he's getting from us)

to my cousin, we got him a guitar tuner that isant much bigger than a bunch of picks put togeher... so it's really light. we put it in a small box (with confetti covering the gift), then put that box into another box, full of pennies (wraped tightly with tape so thay wont gingle), then taped with packing tape. this is his first year to get in our fun too. we hope he enjoys it.

[QUOTE=Jedi Legend]So, I'm still sort of waiting for the alternative to working in retail for these individuals.[/quote]Define "these individuals." Do you mean people with double-digit intelligence quotients?

I'm with you in spirit. What most people don't realize is society is completely arbitrary. It would be so easy to change the rules of our society in such a way as to render accountants and their knowledge useless. Under a better system, people like this wouldn't exist.

Here's what I'm driving at. People are pretty stable. Generally, you don't change the people. The people are fine. Leave the people alone. The system is where it counts. You change the system, and you change everything. Sure, you're always going to have some people that excel in any system you put them in. But my point is that our system is not optimal, so you have a lot of mediocrity. Our society should aim to give everyone the best opportunity possible to succeed. It fails miserably.

And it's a shame.

Well that's an interesting thought. If you measure progress by technology, then I suppose we've come pretty far. If you measure it by happiness, it's probably pretty stagnant.


I think it's more important to be content than it is to obtain as much stuff as you can.


But without Christmas, they have one fewer option to spend it on.


The problem is they go into debt just to get stuff. That makes no sense to me. I mean useless stuff. Not stuff like clothes, food, and housing. That, to me, indicates a problem. And like I said earlier, I believe it is a problem with our system and not with our people. People are way to quick to blame every single individual in our society for problems like debt, and I think that's asinine.

In a better society I'd have been given far better opportunities than I have been given, along with everybody else. In a better society people would take turns doing necessary and life-giving hard work like farming. And we'd have transcended above the need for barbaric consumerism, meaning my job wouldn't even be necessary.

I disagree.

I disagree.

But ideally it does.

Or am I just propagating this society that I think could be way better? That's what I feel like. Kinda disheartening at times; especially during the holidays.

Look Free, if you give me an alternative to capitalism that works, I'll send you a Christmas gift.

Yes, that is true. By being an existent economic system, it is automatically disqualified from being a contender for the "Best Non-Existent Economic System" award. :downs:

What I mean is it can be a lot better.

So stop *****in on the internet and go make it better.

Oh, wait, what about the rich people? Surely they don't think socialism taking all their money is better.

I just scrolled through a huge arguement where people were literally tearing posts apart. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about creative ways to wrap stuff and confuse people?

[QUOTE=Glyde Bane]I just scrolled through a huge arguement where people were literally tearing posts apart. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about creative ways to wrap stuff and confuse people?[/QUOTE]

No. It's supposed to be about the history of the word "man".

What's wrong with that? A lot of people would be a lot worse off with out the Christmas season. Many business would fold with out it. It's sort of like harvest time, where we part take in all we've produced over the year, sort of like harvest. You can still enjoy it with the right attitude.

Sure it'd be great if we sent a man to mars with money, but if we didn't have this season, we wouldn't have the money to do things like that. It may seem like a waste but it's actually producing the wealth to make the extraordinary things we already have possible.

So we have the main point of the thread, the argument that results from the thread being derailed, and Flirbnic's crazy-*** secondary argument hijacking. Excellent. >:D

To say that those jobs that are created are bad because they are a drain on society are wrong. It's called efficient allocation of resources.

People want stuff for Christmas. Therefore, jobs are created to fill the demand for "stuff" for Christmas. I really don't see how hard that is to understand. I mean, it's simple supply and demand. You know what would happen if those jobs weren't there? You'd have millions of people without stuff for Christmas.

You can whine all you want that we are consumer whores, but that is a result of the dramatic increase in capital goods, which overall lead to more capital AND consumer goods.