Retail guilt' and why I won't be doing my civic duty today

The lights are on and there's no one home – because everyone's in town shopping for Christmas.
This was the dream scenario for the genius who decided Christmas should come to Dublin two weeks earlier than last year.
This evening, Dublin's lord mayor Eibhlin Byrne will light up the 'Beacon of Hope' tree on O'Connell Street to lure us into the city's 4,000 shops.
It is our civic duty, apparently, to buy our way out of the recession.
This twisting of the space-time continuum is nothing new. The retail festival of Hallowe'en now starts in September and 'de facto' Christmas the day after it.
Pressure, pressure, pressure. Buy, buy, buy.
The next progression will be to bring forward St Stephen's Day so the sales can start early.
This call to civic duty is a prime example of how we are controlled by Retail Guilt. This is the opposite of Retail Therapy, as there is very little enjoyment to be derived from it – unless you're selling something.
Not enough time to spend with your children? Throw money at them instead. Buy our latest designer clothes and computer games.
Are you a bad friend? 'Real' friends spend a fortune texting everybody in their phonebook on New Year's Eve. Don't leave anyone out now. (Premium rates apply.)
Guilt, guilt, guilt.
Bad man if you think Hallmark days – Granny's Day, Valentine's Day, Pet Rabbit Day – are a cynical ploy to extract guilt money.
Utter swine if you don't buy a letter from Santa. On Tuesday, I saw a newspaper ad for a phoneline offering to write one to your child for €7. Memo to parents: if you can't be bothered to do it yourself, then the gesture is meaningless.
And finally this: 'unpatriotic' Dubliner if you don't shop in town.
There are many good reasons for not doing this 'civic duty'. Firstly, local businesses need our money as much as city ones. Then there's the traffic, the queues, the €4.10 you spend in a taxi before it goes anywhere. Most importantly, there are the prices.
According to Mercer consultants, Dublin is the eighth most expensive city in Europe. This is probably why last Christmas 290,000 of us travelled to the US instead of Dublin and spent, on average, €1,900. There are considerable savings to be made there on everything from iPods to jeans. Last month, Dublin's retailers revealed how much these trips are hurting when ISME, almost petulantly, accused customs officers of turning a blind eye to them.
It's not just the United States that's challenging Dublin's shops. In June, the National Consumer Agency found a basket of 42 branded goods was 28% cheaper in Tesco in the North. A Dunnes basket was 31% cheaper.
The merchants' response to competition is to bring Christmas forward. It's laughable.
Why is it our civic duty to bail them out, despite having been fleeced by them during the rip-off years?
Dublin's retailers are faced with hardships. Grafton Street is the fourth most expensive place in Europe to rent, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle. As a result, it has become like a British High Street as only the big name chains such as Next, River Island, Oasis, Boots, Marks and Sparks etc, can afford to pay the rent.
However, business is business, and if Dublin's shops want mine, then the deal is this: lower your prices. Give me an incentive other than waving fairy lights at me.
Not that all of them want to give me those either. In 2006, the Dublin City Business Association claimed up to 30% of retailers were unwilling to pay for the lights. That was back when they saw no need to love-bomb us. Now we're no longer being taken for granted.
They have reeled out the mayor to emphasise that the real meaning of Christmas is consumerism.
What is even more annoying about this guilt trip is the fact that the lights she is turning on today aren't even made in Ireland. They're from France. Why couldn't they source lights here?
The lights are on but there's no one home, all right.

dkenny@tribune.ie