2012-05-25
Original: 2012-05-25 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Daddy, what'd you get me for Christmas?
Father: Son, come on now. You're better than that. Christmas isn't about gifts.
Panel 2:
Father: Gifts are just a medium people use to express feelings.
Panel 3:
Father: Like this year I got Mommy a holiday emblem that isn't compatible with her religious views. It's not just a gift -- it's a sign of contempt and an expression of the fact that I, and Mommy, will run this family however we damn well please.
Panel 4:
Father: I also got my boss a gifty dollar gift certificate. I don't care if she knows it's just what she'll think I think I think her, so she doesn't see me as a career threat until it's too late.
Panel 5:
Father: Oh! And I'm getting you an expensive video game by some grandee. It'll hurt your grades, I want other kids to see it and think you're poor, and parents who wealthy I am, thus increasing my status in the community.
Panel 6:
Child (Bobby): Bobby, Christmas shouldn't be about materialism. It should be about status consciousness and money-shame.
Panel 7 (caption: LATER...):
Father: A fire truck. Do you want it from his, Brian, his mother?
Child: What did your father say to you?
Votey:
A man (in profile): The firetruck, being a common gift, indicates that you aren't special.
Child: Daddy, what'd you get me for Christmas?
Father: Son, come on now. You're better than that. Christmas isn't about gifts.
Panel 2:
Father: Gifts are just a medium people use to express feelings.
Panel 3:
Father: Like this year I got Mommy a holiday emblem that isn't compatible with her religious views. It's not just a gift -- it's a sign of contempt and an expression of the fact that I, and Mommy, will run this family however we damn well please.
Panel 4:
Father: I also got my boss a gifty dollar gift certificate. I don't care if she knows it's just what she'll think I think I think her, so she doesn't see me as a career threat until it's too late.
Panel 5:
Father: Oh! And I'm getting you an expensive video game by some grandee. It'll hurt your grades, I want other kids to see it and think you're poor, and parents who wealthy I am, thus increasing my status in the community.
Panel 6:
Child (Bobby): Bobby, Christmas shouldn't be about materialism. It should be about status consciousness and money-shame.
Panel 7 (caption: LATER...):
Father: A fire truck. Do you want it from his, Brian, his mother?
Child: What did your father say to you?
Votey:
A man (in profile): The firetruck, being a common gift, indicates that you aren't special.
Alt text
A seven-panel SMBC comic. A young boy asks his father what he got him for Christmas. The father, in close-up, lectures that Christmas isn't about gifts -- gifts are just a medium people use to express feelings. Over several panels he cynically explains his gift choices: he got Mommy a holiday emblem incompatible with her religious views as a sign of contempt and a show of who runs the family; he got his boss a cheap gift certificate so she won't see him as a career threat until it's too late; and he's getting his son an expensive video game to hurt his grades, make other kids think the family is poor, and raise his own status in the community. The boy then parrots back that Christmas shouldn't be about materialism but about status consciousness and money-shame. In the final 'LATER...' panel the boy, looking troubled, is asked by his mother what his father said to him. The votey panel shows a man in profile delivering the punchline in a speech bubble: 'The firetruck, being a common gift, indicates that you aren't special.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.