Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to
celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around
stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on
The Waltons. Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind
of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The
government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level
Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and
billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which
it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming
thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with
the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money
and go to a mall.
-- Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide
