Oh, the commercialization of the holidays! It's just awful! OOOHHH, I just can't stand it. Okay, now that I've said all the stuff we think we should say, let me be honest. (How often do you hear a weatherman say that? And, mean it?!?) I like many of the holiday commercials that pop up on the air this time of the year. The Hershey Kisses that ring in the season, for example, are neat. (Can a man in his increasingly white-headed 40s use the word "neat" and not risk being snickered at or chased down and pummeled? At least I refrained for adding the "o" and making it "neato." I would've have done just that but this blog's letter budget is just about all used up and I need to make the various vowels last through Dec mb r 31. Uh-oh...am I alr ady running low on "e's?" Bad n ws!) There was a commercial for Amazon, I think it was, a few years back that looked like it was straight from the 50s...lots of cardigans. It was great. Also, my dad used to get all teary when the Clydesdale Horses trotted through that Currier and Ives scenery. He wasn't a beer drinker and he wasn't a horse guy. However, he did have a strange attraction to Ed McMahon. One "HIII-YO!" and my dad was a basket case.

There are three specific holiday commercials that, more than the others, warm the cockles of my heart. And, you don't want to go around with cold cockles. Actually, what are cockles...which are little mollusk kind of things sung about by that Irish "tart with a cart," Molly Malone...doing in one's chest cavity in the first place. You'd need a cardiologist with a degree in fly-fishing to treat your "sea-rrhythmia." Anyway, I have warm cockles this time of the year.

1. Santa on the Norelco! I loved seeing Jolly Old Saint Nick gliding on his three-headed machine. Obviously, he didn't need it to shave so why not ride it! He always looked very happy sailing across the frozen tundra. My dad had one of those triple-floating head deals so, as a child, I decided to test the commercial. We didn't have a stuffed little Santa around the house but we did have these weird elf guys that sat on the window sill. I took one and strapped it to my dad's Norelco and sent it down the hill in our backyard. It didn't really slide but it did fly. The elf was traumatized but not quite as animated in his response as my father. I believe his less-than-supportive response to my inquiry is one of main reasons I never did well in Science from that day forward. At least that's what I told all my science teachers as we were trying to put out the various Bunsen burner fires I accidentally started through the years.

2. The college kid making coffee! I think I may be thinking of two separate commercials here. One I mentioned the other day in this space: a kid sneaks in the door and starts to sing O Holy Night, reducing everyone to tears. But, there's another one, where he gets home early before anyone else is up and starts to make coffee only to be discovered by his little brother. Coffee as a religious experience! Rang very true for a kid growing up in a German-Scandinavian-Lutheran household. In our house, my wife almost has two of the four kids drinking coffee so there is a chance we could live this commercial at some point in the future.

3. Kraft Food Commercials! The reason I always loved these was the voice behind the pictures. Ed Herlihy. He had been Jack Paar's announcer and the voice of newsreels but it was his descriptions of the things you could do with Velveeta Cheese that made me pay attention. His voice was so friendly. Even if everyone else was mad at me, I knew Little Ol' Ed Herlihy would be my pal and he'd bring food. My dad used to wax emotional about the colors and camera shots of the commercials. How great the food looked! This was in the days before the Food Channel so, other than Julia Child, in black and white then, you didn't see much fancy food on the tube. As the camera lovingly caressed this casserole and that basket of buttery rolls, my dad would get misty. He wasn't a big eater. In fact, he was skinny. His best Halloween costume was to stand side-ways, stick out his tongue and say he was a zipper. If he wore all black, he looked like clarinet. He was once man-handled by Pete Fountain. My dad just loved the pictures of all that food. Frankly, if the voice behind the food had been Ed McMahon instead of Ed Herlihy, my dad would have been so overwhelmed with pleasure some sort of medical attention may have been necessary.

So, on the outside I will rail against crass commercialization but in the quiet of my room, I will look for that soothing glow from the TV screen. Forget sugarplums, I'll be all snug in my bed with visions of shavers and coffee cups dancing in my head...narrated by Ed Herlihy.