I will never be someone who says that they hate Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I love the vibes, the spirit, the general atmosphere of Christmas. However, there is one thing that I cannot stand about the Christmas season, and that is Christmas music, specifically when people play it too early.
Now I like Christmas music: it is festive and jolly and bright (forgive the cliché), but I will be honest with you, there is a very limited amount of Christmas music that is more mainstream, and there tends to be around 10 songs that people recall when they think of Christmas music.
This generalization is likely because of the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday; not everybody celebrates it. Most people celebrate Christmas because it is just something that happens, and many of the factors of the holiday have lost their religious roots, although the same cannot be said for Christmas music.
Many of the songs that people associate with Christmas tend to stray from the religious roots, and focus more on the spirit and aesthetic of Christmas rather than the history of Jesus and Christianity. Now this isn’t always true: songs such as “Silent Night” or “Little Drummer Boy,” are inherently based in religion yet are also quite popular in regard to their streamability during the season.
That being said, most of the music put out during the Christmas season is religious; therefore, it is not widely streamed on radio stations due to rules against “forcing” religion on people, even if it is through the freedom of music. This means that radio stations focus on the select songs that have been approved or are popular enough that the religious roots can be ignored.
I will concede that there is a time and place where Christmas music is the perfect soundtrack for some activities, such as setting up your Christmas tree and hanging ornaments, making Christmas dinner and breakfast, making gingerbread houses, and other festive activities.
Despite the fact that there is a time and place for Christmas music, there also isn’t, such as November 1st on the ride to school everyday, or as the background for your everyday activities and using Christmas songs as a replacement for usual listening habits.
I know that some people do consider Christmas music to be the perfect soundtrack to their lives the minute “Christmas Season” begins, and I will say that those people are stronger than I am.
I asked some of the newspaper staff who expressed an enjoyment of Christmas music about some of their listening habits, and I will say, I agreed with most of their opinions.
Everyone that I spoke with stated that they tend to begin listening to Christmas music in mid to late November, excluding the select few who begin streaming the day after Halloween. Now, the part that I am most troubled by is when Christmas music is used to replace the other music that they listened to, and I can honestly say that nobody that I spoke to does that. Everyone either listened to it almost exclusively while doing activities that were inherently Christmas related, or they indulge interspersed with their other music when they have a music slump.
