Ah, Christmas music! Sometimes I love it, but sometimes I downright loathe every note. One thing is certain — I am never ambivalent about it. When I love it, I absolutely love it. When I loathe it, it is like grinding teeth and then some. When I first heard it on November 1, it was torturous. (Perhaps it was earlier, but I blocked that painful experience out of my memory.)
“How could anyone willingly listen to that #$%^?” I wondered as department stores began to blare it like it sounded really good. What were they thinking?! I suspect retail marketers were hearing carols of “cha-ching” rather than “fa-la-la-la.” Well, when I heard those premature fa-la-la-la-las, I decided to take my cha-ching elsewhere. So there!
Fast forward to post-Thanksgiving. Yes, POST-Thanksgiving! Let’s give Thanksgiving it’s due, and then bring on Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. (You know the rest.) I don’t care if the turkey hasn’t even gotten cold, but let’s not have holiday encroachment. Holidays — and retailers– must wait their turn, respecting each holiday even if it does not promote a shopping bonanza. As a friend from Mississippi would sum it up, “It just ain’t right.”
So, anyway, it is hurtful on November 1 and then acceptable on December 1. And every day henceforth it becomes more and more beautiful to the ear. What is this? The Christmas Effect? The closer we get to December 25, the more I love it, thinking I’ll never listen to anything else and hopefully Lite 98.1 will consider playing it all year long. On Christmas Day it is like an angel playing a harp.
On December 26, it is still charming, but not quite as much. It continues to ebb. And so on, and so on, and so on. By the beginning of January, it just seems incongruous to anything else, quite strange, foreign, and somehow inappropriate. And after that, just fuggedaboutit. The Christmas Effect is over, and the magic of Christmas is gone. It’s back to nails on a chalkboard —- until next December 1 when it will become appealing once again, growing progressively more enchanting until December 25. In the meantime, I’ll be looking forward to the Christmas Effect of 2011 – and so is this little drummer boy!
