Weighing in on Holiday Songs

This year musical and commercial manifestations of the Christmas season started immediately after Halloween. To be fair, I wasn't in the country at this time last year, but in my memory there was a lag period of at least a week. I started noticing lights in trees and on sign posts around Columbus Day. They weren't lit, but it was so early I wondered whether they were premature or left over from last year. On November 3 I heard Christmas carols in the lobby of a movie theater. Really it's too much. I am already entering retail stores in fear of hearing that awful Chipmunk's Christmas Song ("Huuuuuula hooooooop!").

My friend Jess has begun a correspondence with Boston radio station WROR addressing their plan to play ONLY Christmas music between last Monday and December 25. The producer who responded to her very reasonable letter basically said, "You're no fun." But really, making the Christmas season eight weeks long seems like a sure way to drain all of the fun from it. Even my mother, who normally is a pretty level headed person, has fallen victim to this marketing scheme. She is going Christmas shopping today with a bunch of lady friends (and many of them are Jewish!). The madness must stop. Just as the presidential campaign should not begin two years before the election, the Christmas season should not begin two months before the holiday.