Yes, it’s the time of year. The blinding displays of Christmas lights. The relentless parade of holiday movies. The return of Dominick the donkey.

And all my reflexes want to do is scream, “Bah, humbug!” People keep asking me why. Here are some answers:

1. Creeping Christmasism: I’ve been seeing Christmas items in stores since September. This is not okay. The earlier I see them, the stronger my anti-Christmas-as-marketing-machine reaction tends to be, and the longer it takes to get over that reaction. In another couple of years, I expect it’ll take till Valentine’s Day.

2. Relentless Hard-Sell: This is not my first time to the rodeo. I’ve spent a lot of years having people try and sell me stuff, not just at Christmastime but all the time. There comes a point where you just want to scream, “STFU and leave me alone, if I wanna buy something I will, now get out of my way!” It’s not exactly “get off my lawn,” but it’s in the ballpark, I suppose. I guess that’s part of why we get a little crankier as we get older: We feel relentlessly hounded by irrelevant jackasses.

3. Unreasonable Expectations: No one I know ever gave or received a Lexus with a bow on it for Christmas, and I know quite a few people with the wherewithal to pull it off. So just stop.

4. The Ugliest Side of Human Nature: Rioting over a $2 waffle maker. Pepper spray and looting. When did Black Friday start to look like the Rodney King riots?

5. General Rudeness: One would think that a holiday defined by “joy” and “giving” and “spirit” would bring out the best in most people. Not even close. Somehow common courtesy seems to fly out the window whether it’s on the road or in the mall. Hey, people: We all live in one giant community — this isn’t all about you, you and only you.

There, I got that out of my system. But I gotta say: Each year, it gets tougher and tougher to get into the Christmas spirit. When Darlene Love is no longer singing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Letterman, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

So declares Business 2 Community. I’d like to believe it’s true, and I agree with the general sentiment of the post (“People need to hear real advice about how to make this tool work for them. Saying that you can talk to people in real time is not enough. That is not sales. That is not conversion. That is not ROI. That is not what is needed.”), but I suspect that as long as agencies and self-proclaimed “social media experts” have confections to sell, there will always be those on the client side with a strong enough sweet tooth and a big enough budget to buy them.

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”
—John Lennon

Mashable reports. So does Wired. And Marketing Pilgrim. Among others. Expect to see a slew of “10 Ways Businesses Can Harness The Power of the New Twitter to Drive Staggering Profits” blog posts any moment now.

In the world of social media advertising — or maybe that should be advertising by social media — one of the metrics of success is how many times your video is shared.

Mashable, via Unruly, details the 20 most-shared ads for November. The commercial embedded above is one of them, and definitely makes my list of the top 10 best beer commercials ever.