The Five Most Annoying Christmas Ads

Anyone who's watched football (or What Not to Wear, we guess) recently knows that the onslaught has begun: The horror of Christmas commercials.

These heinous 30-second bits of torture can abuse viewers in several ways. Here are five of the worst.

5. Jewelry for the Meek, Submissive Weaker Sex

Whether it's actually for an engagement ring or just a pre- or post-marital bauble, the set-up is the same: Yearning woman, desperate for any indication that her mate has taken the slightest bit of notice of her, becomes feverishly ecstatic upon receipt of some mass-produced jewelry. Bonus points for the "He went to Jared" ad campaign, which always has us wondering who would buy jewelry at a Subway and why a woman would be so happy to get it.

4. The Home Depot Fantasy
Saw this one this weekend: Husband (Hey!! He's Asian!! Viva multi-culturalism!!) yammering how he loooves tools; little wifey sets out to fulfill his holiday dreams. She not only finds a free Home Depot worker -- an achievement on a par with finding Osama Bin Ladin (working in a Home Depot) -- but the guy acts as her personal shopper, escorting her around the store, extolling the glories of some drill or spackle-applier. Maybe that's why you can never find a fucker to tell you where the duct tape is.

3. Best Buy's "Slushy Economy"
A few North Pole characters ripped off from the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special sit around bitching. "I don't know what a slushy economy is," one moans, adding something we've never bothered to listen to. A "slushy economy" means, we believe, that everyone's working at a 7-11. Another great Best Buy ad: The leader of the elves telling everyone they're going to have to come in on Christmas to help inept parents program all their new electronics, which gets met with loud groans from the workers. Who knew Christmas was so big in Mumbai?

2. "I'll be bahk -- for Christmas"
This ad for the Droid shows happy kids being called inside to dinner, leaving their snowman alone. Which is just as well, because the snowman goes into a Transformers robotic routine that is as elaborate as it is totally pointless. The only reaction this ad gets is something along the lines of "Gee, remember when special effects like that were really cool?"

1. The Car Ads
It started with Lexus putting a big bow on the car in the driveway, with the happy recipient opening his or her eyes and being blown away. Now carmakers have taken things to ridiculous extremes -- Mom and the kids build an elaborate sedan-sized box that rolls open with ease; huge curtains drop down from houses; wifey parks the fraking car in the living room. All this is done without the recipient knowing anything about it until the big Surprise!! moment. Man, it's a good thing that dude didn't happen to walk into his living room in the middle of the night looking for that book he left there. Probably would have banged his knee on the damn car.