I have to laugh when I hear about some pure state of Christmas, whether it’s conservatives bemoaning the War on Christmas or just regular folk expressing some desire to get back to the Real Meaning of Christmas. Man, it’s a mutt of a holiday and always has been: a mix of Christian and pagan symbols, a balancing act between the sacred and the secular.
The December 25th date is due to the Winter Solstice, not the actual birth date of Jesus. The holiday is primarily driven in America by commerce. God Bless Xmas, and I love it, but let’s not be purists, ’cause they ain’t no such thang here.
For example, traditionalists often value seeing the same special on television year after year or perhaps the Christmas display in Rockefeller Center. Commerce at work. Remember when companies would run the same ad campaign every year? You still see it a little these days, like Coke’s polar bears, but not like in the old days. There was that little Santa scooting around on a Norelco electric razor on snow-covered slopes…
Most of you are familiar with the fact that Gap runs holiday commercials annually on television. This year, it’s the “Holiday In Your Hood” campaign, pushing hoodies. There are billboards with the likes of Seal, Claudia Schiffer, Bow Wow, Helen Mirren, and Deepak Chopra; you can see a photo up there that’s from Times Square. Their press release describes the TV spots thusly:
The holiday TV advertising is comprised of two 30-second spots featuring musician and actor Common rapping “Holiday In Your Hood’, an original song he wrote especially for the campaign. Common’s remake was produced by Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am and the lyrics are set to ‘Holiday”, the song made famous by Madonna. In the spots, energetic dancers, famed deejay Samantha Ronson and Common’s daughter Omoya Lynn, move and groove their way around a forty-foot gold peace sign – the symbol at the center of Gap’s holiday marketing campaign. Each person in the commercial sports one of Gap’s classic holiday hoodies. The ads end as Common flashes a peace sign as he raps “peace love gap”.
Back in 2000, the spot featured video effects as dancers merged into one another, but it was the music that I really loved. A remix of Leroy Anderson‘s classic song “Sleigh Ride” switched into Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” and then back out.
GAP commercial 2006
GAP commercial 2000
Tags: GAP, Common, Vanilla Ice, Christmas commercials, TV, MP3s