Saturday, November 3, 2012

By popular demand...


Halloween is done. Now there are no more consumer relevant holidays until Christmas. Fortunately we can exercise our free market rights between now and then by shopping until our credit limits have been bloodied and beaten. Of course nothing has come to symbolize those rights more than the jolly old elf himself, Santa Claus. But Santa Claus is so old school. Not edgy. Not dangerous. Not patentable.

One of the true blessings that has come from combining democracy with free markets, besides the complete negation of our own humanity, is the ability, nay the requirement, to adapt all things to the service of the gods of marketing.

Take the lowly penguin for example. You cannot use it for food, unless you are shipwrecked on Elephant Island, just ask Shackleton. You cannot be used for clothing, they do not go with anything you own. We have been totally unsuccessful training them to flip hamburgers, so they are of no use to the service industry.

But wait. We can use them for marketing. They certainly have no bearing on Easter, or Queen Victoria's birthday but how about Christmas. Perfect! Penguins are cute and entirely meaningless in that context so lets use them to market Christmas.

But wait. We are in Alberta. And we are Albertans. We have our own mythology. We believe in the ethics of hard work, determination, the individual, god and sparkly vampires. We are not like those communists in B.C. and Saskatchewan, we are Conservatives. All of us. Every one of us.

Artists Rendition
We need something that will symbolize our core beliefs. Something that says we don't need high school diplomas, an educated populace, or imagination. Something that shows how very very very very important this holiday is to our souls and spiritual well being. We need something that truly represents all of that and so much more. Something that is Christmas in Alberta in the year 2012.

Well, now we have it. Now we have the Christmas Capybara!

Merry CHRISTmas!