okay, this makes me mad...

God bless Rachael Ray, seriously. I don't have anything against her. Or Valerie Bertinelli. But the pair of them made me really angry today. Here's the scoop:

Twenty something guy has a trio of nephews that need adopting, so he does. Word gets out. He's picked as "superdad" and since it's the holiday season, why not lavish some money on this guy. Okay, first of all, the circumstances behind all this I dont know. Maybe it was some tragic accident. Either way, he has 3 kids now. And he has 3 bosom buddies that help him out, crash on his couch to help with the kids. I'd personally think he was pretty well set. I don't know.

Anyway, these kids are like 3, 4, 5 years old. Stairsteps. Back to the holiday thing, the American express people decide that EACH kid needs $1000 worth of gifts UNDER THE TREE. That's right THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for one holiday! They take the dad shopping and he just can't figure out what to buy, but he makes sure they get some clothes (kudos to this guy) as well. There's a bit of money left, cause, like how are you going to hide that much stuff for the kids in your house, and the little boys go and buy him an Xbox game thing and some games the whole family can play together. Fine. THEN. They cut back to the show and each of the 3 guardian angels that crash on the couch get a THOUSAND dollars to spend on their own Christmas. Fine.

THEN they announce that since it's so tough to get meals on the table, this guy is getting a free balanced meal delivered to his door for everyone every WEEKNIGHT for a YEAR. Oh and by the way, we called your boss, you're getting a raise and a Christmas bonus. Oh and by the way again, you're getting $50,000 to spend in any way you want on yourself. Go back to school, whatever.

I'm sorry, that's just WAY TOO MUCH! What's going to happen when next year, they've blown through all those toys and all that money and they're back to ho-hum how will we make Christmas for these kids match up to the THOUSAND dollars apiece that got spent on them last year. It's ridiculous. These kids won't ever know what to expect. They aren't old enough to get that this is a one time thing, they'll expect it next year too. And how is that guy going to keep up? How is he going to explain it?

And of course my other thought it, well, gee, that's nice, but what about all those other hungry, can't buy presents cause we're running out of money, people out there in this world. Sure, this is a good guy, but does he really deserve that much? Does it matter what he deserves?

I grew up in the 80's where downsizing hit our family hard, and even if it hadn't, we never would have had an Xbox, or a DS, let alone one apiece! Plus all those other toys. Give me a break. I don't think Christmas should be that commercial. What is it teaching those boys? You know, way back when, it would have been nice to have had 2 - $25 gifts, we had about one apiece plus the things we NEEDED such as clothes, gloves, and a few things in our stockings. That was it. And we thought we were in heaven. We (at least I) knew we didn't get as much as our peers at school, but that really didn't matter when you were in your pj's in front of the tree just playing with your my little ponies or GI Joes or whatever. You had time with family and thought about Santa and ate yourself silly on candy from your stocking before breakfast hit the table. We didnt need $100 apiece let alone $1000.

What do you think? Did they give those kids way too much? Is is going to confuse them the next time an event comes up and it's back to normal? Am I just being bah humbug? Is it just one more example of a corporation or a celebrity trying to make up for their bad behavior over the intervening year? (not saying either Rachael or Valerie is bad)