“Are you going to start playing Christmas music now?” she asked.
“It’s still too early,” I said.
She disagreed and said I was a Scrooge, Grinch, Christmas hater, killjoy and poopy head.
While I’ve never put up my own Christmas tree, gone a-wassailing or decked my halls with boughs of anything, I do not hate Christmas. I think it can be, like the song says, the most wonderful time of the year. And Christmas music is vital in making this a wonderful season and bringing people together. The traditional hymns, carols and classic songs bridge the gulf between generations. From the oldsters who don’t know what a Post Malone is to the kids who are baffled by the concept of Men Without Hats, everyone can sing along to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “White Christmas” and the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”
I am not immune to the magic of Christmas music and I enjoy much of it, including both the sublime and the silly. (I even attempted my own contributions to the genre, but no one was interested in “Christmas on the Isthmus” or “Ella the Elk Elf.”) Plus it’s fantastic that for at least a few weeks a year we live in a world where Bing Crosby and Nat “King” Cole are regularly heard on the radio.
When the time is right, I warmly embrace the songs of the season. I will confess to God and country that I even love Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” one of the most widely reviled songs of the Christmas playlist. However, I draw the line at “The Chipmunk Song.” It’s been over 60 years; someone buy that insufferable rodent a stinkin’ hula hoop already.
But when holiday music starts getting played in stores and on the radio too early, it’s drained of its power and poignance by the time we finally reach Christmas Day. After several weeks of repeatedly rocking around the Christmas tree and choruses constantly asking if you hear what they hear, these formerly festive songs become irritating and maddening. Frosty the Snowman changes from a delightful, mystical playmate to a frozen vapor demon that’ll murder us in our sleep and steal our children.
Instead of playing Christmas songs before we even reach Thanksgiving, why not start later and then continue them for a week or two after the holiday? But radio stations and stores drop Christmas music immediately after December 25th like it’s a girlfriend who is suddenly embarrassing. She brought you great joy and you had fun together, but now you’re a clod who pretends she never existed. (“Mary? Mary who? I don’t know anyone by that name. Now leave me alone before I stab you in the heart with the toothbrush she left in my bathroom.”)
So, I’d rather not hear Christmas music just yet. However, I’m getting all my favorite Yuletide albums out and I’ll be ready to play them by the middle of December. But I won’t listen to them until then. Except for Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s never too early for that.