Or prelit with LED lights you control from your smartphone. Or, most abhorrent of all, upside down:

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This is a bush.

Before you start railing about the historical basis for an upside-down tree, let me stop you. It doesn't matter. It still looks ridiculous. This year, Target is offering the piece de resistance of over-the-top ostentatiousness: a 7-foot, prelit, upside-down, gold glitter, artificial showstopper that will set you back $900 ...

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And your dignity.

... which is a bargain considering their priciest tree, the traditional oriented cashmere pine, tops out at $4,400.

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For obvious reasons.

If Christmas trees can get any more convoluted than they are now, I'd be hard-pressed to say how, but I've no doubt this is a bar that will continue to be raised each year.

It's like a Halloween party where everyone's wearing the same joke costume ... only referencing a joke that hasn't been original or funny in at least five years. The smug irony is gone now that there's barely a discernible line between those who wear them in earnest and those who wear them tongue planted not so firmly in cheek.

Watching this actually made me grateful that I had the type of neglectful parents who could never remember what grade I was and didn't care how my siblings and I spent our free time, as long as it was out of their hair.

The problem is, if you're the type to put together a holiday video, it's pretty much a guarantee everyone is already up to speed, having been inundated with achievements, precocious witticisms, and the minutiae of your family life in your interminable posts on Facebook and Instagram. Also, we get it, your life is great. You wouldn't be filming a big-budget music video about it otherwise. Not everyone has this much to be happy about during the holidays, though, and you know that. At some point, firing off parody rap songs about your family's good fortune to all of your email contacts just turns into running up the score on all the people you think you're better than.

This time of year we're bombarded by commercials that equate giving a mass-produced gewgaw as a shortcut to intimacy, and none are worse than the ones trotted out by Kay Jewelers.

Whether you're in a clearly co-dependent relationship ...

... or you're just getting acquainted with your soon-to-be creeptastic stepdad ...

... everything should be celebrated with a tacky, cornball-themed bauble.

A better bet to get closer to a loved one this holiday season? Rent Blood Diamond and bond over your mutual mockery of Leo DiCaprio's attempt at a South African accent.

In addition to being laden with potential career-damaging landmines, it's also forced fun with people who aren't actually friends. Sure, you probably count some of your co-workers as buddies, so why not hang with them on the corporate dime? The problem is, beyond those select few, your workplace is filled with all types of people, the majority of whom you'd never willingly socialize with, and the rest of whom actively make your skin crawl.

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Let's party!

Inevitably, you'll be cornered by someone you spend work days steering clear of and will be forced to experience a drunken version of everything you've skillfully avoided for an entire year. The bottom line: we'd all be better off if the company just divvied up the money wasted on a party and handed it out as a bonus to be spent as we please.

Owning a dog is a huge commitment, and springing one on someone as a surprise is a really terrible idea. In addition, the chaos of the holidays makes it a very bad time to introduce a dog to a new home. Much like the misguided souls who think real rabbits make ideal Easter gifts, many people who go this route find that the recipient is not ready for the responsibility, and the poor animals suffer for it.

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Do you have the receipt?

Pet adoptions are more successful when there's an opportunity to get somewhat acquainted before deciding to spend the next several years together. Instead of a canine version of an arranged marriage disguised as a Christmas gift, a much more thoughtful idea for all involved is to wait a few weeks and plan on finding one together that's actually the right fit for the giftee. The shelter will be crowded with abandoned "gifts" that will need to find homes with those actually ready and willing to adopt a dog.

But beside the potential promise of a melee among friends, there's really nothing great about trading garbage for garbage.

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"This will look great in the dumpster behind my apartment!"

The gifts usually fall into a few broad categories: holiday-themed gifts, joke gifts, or something purchased in a drunken late-night stupor "As Seen on TV." Like the white elephant it's named after, these gifts have maintenance costs (eventual landfill fodder) that exceed their usefulness. Let's do the planet a favor this holiday season and stop filling it with trash.