I can handle the extra catalogs arriving in my mailbox, promoting present-buying for Christmas. I don’t pay attention to them so they don’t really bother me. I can handle seeing Christmas trees up in store windows and extravagant displays of mall decorations. What drove me over the top today was sitting in the food court at the mall, minding my own business and enjoying a well deserved dinner of bourbon chicken from The Big Easy, when my ears recognized the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra singing Christmas Carols.
It’s not even Thanksgiving yet — why do we have to listen to Christmas Carols already?? How early can we start playing them, Labor Day? Don’t get me wrong; I love Christmas music and sing along happily. But not this early. It pushes the season out of whack and by the time we actually get to Christmas we are so ready for it to be over that we rip open the presents before breakfast and take the tree out to the curb by lunch so we can get ready for the next season
Last year I uploaded a bunch of my favorite Christmas music to the pink iPod and every once in a while one of the songs gets into rotation. One single song in isolation can be appreciated for all that it says. The words matter any time of year. But to blast them nonstop as the soundtrack of our lives for months on end? It’s tooooooo early. Make it STOP.
Random Thoughts of a Disordered Mind 