Have you seen the commercial where a young woman at a family Christmas party flashes a diamond engagement ring and everyone in the room starts whispering "He went to Jared"?

If you haven't, you are clearly not watching a lot of TV which means you are a better person than I, and you are also missing out on some fairly egregious holiday efftardery.

The point of the commercials are that the husband, or the fiance, or the boyfriend or whatever cared enough about his partner and his relationship to make the trip to one of the sixty clearly uber-exclusive locations to purchase the exact right stone and setting to profess how pure and devoted his love really is. As the news of the gift ring circulates through the living room or the restaurant, the phrase "He went to JARED" is uttered with a different inflection for each person. The elderly gentleman in the cardigan vest says it with a touch of paternal pride, the bitter older sister turns to her own husband and remarks, "HE went to Jared", because the last time she got a diamond from her spouse was the Christmas when she found the lipstick stained phone number of their son Payton's KinderMusik teacher in the pocket of his trench coat. Even a ten year old girl gets in on the fun, and utters "He went to JARED..." with such wistfulness and hope in her face that the viewer is left with the sense that every little girl should grow up understanding that true love is only ever about four little words: clarity, cut, color, and carat.

Whenever these commercials are over, I usually have to unclench my fist around whatever napkin or blanket or cat I decided to grab and shake out of disgust. I couldn't put my finger on why I was so irritated for a while, other than that a company using a first name...and not even a POSSESSIVE first name...is just sort of stupid. If it were a first name that could reasonably be a last name too, that might be different. Kyle Jewelers. Mitchell Jewelers. They sound stately and refined. But "Jared"? Not even "Jared's"? That's like giving morons the world over the right to call their businesses things like McKayla Scrap Metal or Chad Fresh Halibut. It just doesn't seem right.

Anyway.

Where did this belief that every woman expects a diamond and every man expects a car or a hideously expensive piece of technology come from? When did it get perpetuated and why did advertisers decide to turn it into such a nasty business? I saw another commercial recently with a woman's world-weary voice informing us that "Every Christmas, you swear to not exchange gifts this year, but every Christmas he knows you really mean 'Please get me a diamond.' So every year he gets the diamond, and every year he hides it in his underwear drawer. And every year when he's gone out for stocking stuffers, you take it for a test drive."

Um...I feel like Santa Claus just stopped being real all over again.

I won't get into the self-righteous soapbox speech about how spending thousands of dollars on an eternity necklace or the perfect pair of studs just seems so wrong, because I know that somehow there's a trickle down effect and a jeweler is able to provide for his or her family because of your purchase, and they provide money to someone else and so forth. I get capitalism, and I get that these pieces aren't just ornaments, but also investments for some people. But seriously? Women are supposed to expect a thousand dollar piece of jewelry every year? And they have the right to get offended if it doesn't materialize under the tree next to the husband's belt sander and surround sound system?

I've been spending a lot of time doing some minor grief counseling for several eight and nine year olds who also found out that Santa Claus isn't real this year. The first time it happened I was completely taken off guard, and I shooed the girl out of my room and told her to ask her parents about it, even though the parents were the ones who accidentally let her find Santa's stash of presents. After that I spent an afternoon thinking pretty hard about it, and the best explanation I could offer them was that no...Santa Claus the person isn't a real live guy anymore. That there was a St. Nicholas but he probably wasn't really a portly man with rosacea and a luxurious beard. Even so, people all over the world dress up like all different kinds of Santas to help remember the good things he did, so that's why we see Santas at malls and parades. And so to abate the disappointment that inevitably follows I tell them to think of how every time they do see someone dressed up as a Santa, there is always a sense of happiness and generosity around them, and that it makes us want to pass that sense of goodness on to other people. So, that in effect we can all be Santa Clauses ourselves, even without the beard and the suit, because we can pass the spirit of Christmas on to other people. Sometimes I don't convince them, and sometimes the kid has confused Santa Claus with Jesus Christ and I've effectively told the child that God is Dead! (irate parental phone call to follow), but mostly the message gets through and the kid can go home and appreciate that his gifts were an act of love, and ultimately a remembrance of the compassion we all desperately need in our lives.

So I have to wonder, if we go to such lengths to protect the magic and the intimacy of the Christmas season for our children, why are we so callous about it in our own lives? Maybe it's all just a metaphor for what's wrong with so many relationships today...we've been socialized to believe that an adversarial partnership is not only acceptable, but expected. The doofus husband and the demanding wife will continue to butt heads until a precious gem or a piece of technology brings them momentarily together on December 25th. That hearts are captured by the man with the biggest bank balance, and that women can bargain their time, attention, even tolerance away for possessions.

Whatever the reason, that Jared commercial has really made me stop and evaluate how what I expect out of my holidays and even kind of how I can be a better partner the next time I get involved in a serious relationship.

At the very least, the next time I need to buy some piece of crap, mass market jewelry by a company that insists upon using a stupid name, I will remember those commercials and point my car straight toward a Kay instead.