It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I’m already getting a headache.
Yes, Santa’s elves are vomiting sunshine everywhere, bathing the streets in gaudy green and red bows and filling the air with the aural equivalent of torture: Christmas music.
We’ve all heard these “time-honored classics” over and over, year after year.
The chestnuts have burned by now on that open fire. Bing Crosby rises from the grave to have us dream of a white Christmas after his song bores us to sleep.
I think the most maddening part of suffering through Christmas music is the lack of variety.
There are only so many songs that have the “Christmas Seal of Approval,” so that when someone wants to add something to the Christmas catalog, they’re forced to re-record a pre-existing song.
The end result of this is that we now have to wade through The Beach Boys, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus and even Alvin and The Chipmunks all wanting us to know that Santa Claus is, in fact, coming to town. It’s enough to drive anyone insane.
You would think that the fact that Christmas music is being played in almost every department store and radio station would mean that people really like listening to it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In an informal survey that consisted of me pestering strangers at Wal-Mart with “Hey, do you like all this Christmas music?” most answers were variations on “No, I can’t stand it,” or “Man, yeah, I get so sick of this stuff.”
So who likes these songs? It can’t be just carolers and grandmothers, can it?
Well, the rationale behind wanting to start the season early is simple. People associate Christmas with happiness, and stores associate Christmas with full cash registers. It seems like a win-win.
But, by binging on these songs for a solid month, they lose all of the magic they may have had otherwise, especially by the time you reach Christmas Day.
It’s like sitting down and eating an entire bag of candy: when you get to the last few, you’re not really enjoying them anymore, you just want to be done with it.
But it seems that the Christmas juggernaut is slowly marching back across the calendar. I heard stores playing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Deck the Halls” at least two weeks before Thanksgiving this year, and I imagine it won’t be long before all of November is smothered under a big pile of jingle bells.
God help us all.