I don't understand

Holidays suck. Some insane marketing veep gets a bug up his ass about increasing retail sales, and suddenly some obscure little holiday gets a new spin and it's big, big BIG. Card companies, people who make useless crap for people who go crazy for matchy-matchy anything (oh come on, you know the type: they have to have different switchplates, towels, soap, pillows, sheets, etc. for whatever stupid holiday or event comes next.), toy manufacturers, cereal companies, etc.- they all jump right on that bandwagon and peddle like there's no tomorrow. Then all the rest of us blindly swallow the guff they hand out on commercials in all the media about how necessary it is to share this lovely holiday with people who make you crazy for the most part. They show you touching commercials about the joy of_____ (fill in the stupid holiday of your choice) and before you know it, you're dabbing at your eyes with a kleenex and wishing you could celebrate with the family they show on the commercial because they're not busy screaming at each other or drinking too much, unlike your actual family. Actually, my family is pretty nice, but this doesn't seem to be the norm from what I've heard.

So we all get sucked in to this manic need to get exactly the right thing for each person on our lists, and the list keeps getting bigger as families and friends procreate their ways into geometric progression. Pretty soon, there are way too many people you're buying presents for, and people go into debt trying to afford all of them. This is crazy, people. Really. I have to admit, I really like some of the decorating bit (of course, anything involving some more shiny things and little lights is fun for me), and I enjoy getting together with everyone. But just imagine: if we didn't have to spend all that time thinking about what to get all these people, fighting the crowds at the mall trying to buy exactly the same things, we would have so much more time, money and peace of mind!

Here's what I propose: once the kids are over the age of 16 and think everything you say or do is impossibly lame anyway, skip the whole presents thing, just get together with family and friends, everyone bring a covered dish and help clean up, have a great dinner (or any other meal) together and make sure you say lots of silly things so that everyone spends a lot of time laughing, then tell everyone you love them and go home (either you or them). And put extra shiny things around with little lights on them. Just don't wait for a specific holiday. Make one up, like GOSH I'm Frustrated Monday, or Happy Mortgage Rates Just Went Down, or Look I Got A Really Pretty Shade of Lipstick Today. How about Congratulations, You're Fully Employed Now? You get the picture. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. But it was a nice moment, wasn't it?