Under the Sun
Holidays bring tidings of
sharing and salad shooters'TIS the season to be shopping. I know this because the commercials for salad shooters are making their annual run on television and the hawking of these curious contraptions occurs only near Christmas. If I hadn't already been primed for the yearly plunge into unchecked consumerism by the yuletide adornments that began appearing in stores before Halloween, the image of the appliance that slices and flings cucumber pieces into a bowl would have brought me to my senses.
Soon there will be other familiar ads -- the ones showing a snowman sledding downhill on an electric razor, Chia pets sprouting shaky time-lapse foliage and blurry black-and-white footage of Perry Como crooning nostalgic holiday tunes on a CD collection, digitally remastered, of course -- all urging us to buy, buy, buy. Vying for our dollars will be big-wheeled toy trucks that can climb across the ottoman, if not the Rockies; celebrity-inspired perfumes and potions; Barbie and GI Joe dolls with mix-and-match outfits; and the latest, greatest version of that rotisserie oven on which you spit massive hunks of meat.
Not to say I don't enjoy Christmas, because I do. I like being able to turn on the tube and catch Jimmy Stewart and "It's a Wonderful Life" on at least five of the 50-odd basic cable channels at any time, day or night. I like the sharp fragrance of real fir trees, the shimmer of light displays around town and the beat of the pah-rup-pah-pum-pums of "Little Drummer Boy" -- well, for the first three times I hear the song.
Most amazing to me about Christmas, however, is all the ingenuity and creativity employed in dreaming up stuff to sell. It's an American talent that flourishes during the holidays.
Where else but in the land of plenty would you be able to choose from several different Rudolph-the-reindeer noses to don for the office party? There are noses that simply light up, ones that flash when the attached elastic band is pulled taut around your head, others that alternate red and green, sparkling noses, noses that play the reindeer tune, noses that jingle bells while twinkling scarlet. And if your real nose gets ticklish from the rigs, you can wipe away the sniffles using tissue decked with boughs of holly.
A stroll through a mall will tally thousands of holiday-themed candles alone. Some are designed incongruously for Hawaii, like the crystal icicles or the snow-covered pine cones in one store window, while others, shaped like coconut trees and makizushi, seem more fitting to the island culture. Some aren't even real candles, like the smooth shafts of white chocolate displayed in a candy shop. I wonder if the people who came up with the idea for the candy candles meant them to be eaten, and if not, what's the point? Maybe it's just the thing itself, the distinction of candy disguised as something else.
If the creation of goods themselves isn't enough, great marketing minds have fashioned hundreds of upscale ways to wrap them. The simple paper shopping bags have been eclipsed by lined organza purses with beaded and tasseled pulls. Hand-made mulberry paper with rose petals pressed between layers, silk ribbons in marbled patterns, woven fibers tinted with natural plant dyes and Lucite boxes with silver fittings will distinguish your offerings under the Christmas tree.
All of this seems to point to the excesses of our consumer culture, of buying and having and wanting even more. In one way, it does. We surrender to the material world, seeking the pretty, the clever, the amusing, the new and improved.
Still, the root of the impulse is pure because while the stuff we throw money at may not be necessary in life, the pleasure of giving and sharing is -- whether it takes form in a few dollars for the bell-ringer's bucket or a dolphin-shaped wind chime.
In fact, I know someone who would get a kick out of a salad shooter.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin for 25 years.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.