The holiday season is upon us, and we all know what that means: holiday-themed commercials. Every year, a barrage of excessively festive attempts to get us to spend our hard-earned cash on allegedly snazzy products take over the airwaves. The ads can be so annoying and ubiquitous that it becomes disheartening.

Now, don’t take this as yet another screed against the crass commercialization of Christmas. I honestly have no problem with that. After all, it’s a tradition as old as the holiday itself. Many people don’t know this, but the reason the inn was too full for Mary and Joseph was their irresistibly low holiday rate. You gotta book those Christmas trips ahead of time, guys!

No, what I take umbrage with are the commercials themselves. They’re so chock full of fake smiles, crappy carols and mandatory joy that they make me want to skip buying gifts altogether.

The worst offender this year is the Gap. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company actively try to make people dislike them with an ad campaign. It’s as if they’re trying to use reverse psychology. By purposefully making me hate them, they’ll make me think that they don’t want my money. So to spite them, I go down to the Gap and buy every pair of khakis in the joint. Meanwhile, Gap’s corporate fatcats sit in a dark, smoky room, laughing and counting their dirty money.

In case you’ve been lucky enough to miss out on these commercials, here’s the gist: A ragtag bunch of super-attractive models join forces in a vicious maelstrom of charisma, spreading holiday cheer by cheering about holidays. Get it? Like cheerleading. Isn’t that great? Overelaborate choreography combines with brain-burrowing chants to create something so irritating, it inspires seething rage rather than the cheer they profess to be spreading.

The commercials make an admirable-if-misguided attempt to include every possible holiday and observance in the “fun.” Christmas, of course. Hannukah, sure. Even Kwanzaa — because nothing says “Happy Kwanzaa” like a trendy reversible fleece.

But I draw the line at trying to commercialize Winter Solstice. Seriously, they chant, “Go Solstice!” as if it’s totally natural. I get that you’re trying to tap into that valuable pagan market, Gap, but trying to profit off the position of the Earth’s axial tilt relative to the sun just seems wrong.

I look forward to them trying to incorporate Boxing Day, Finnish Independence Day and Pearl Harbor Day into future ads. “GO INFAMY!”

It’s not all bad this holiday season, though. Maria Bamford, one of the best stand-up comedians working today, stars in Target’s inspired holiday campaign as two sisters with very different personalities. The ads simply showcase her talent for character work, essentially just letting her do her material in the aisles of a Target store. It’s funny and eminently watchable, and it makes me far more cheerful than a gang of bescarved joybots ever could.

If more companies could take Target’s lead, maybe the viewing public would be a little less eager to fast forward during the commercial breaks this time of year.

— Nichols is a Stilwell junior in creative writing.