Christmas music should wait at least until after Thanksgiving. If you listen to Christmas carols any sooner, you probably spell the holiday “Xmas” because you’ve lost all serious appreciation for the season.
I would not have written this article except for a disturbing incident at A.J.’s Cafe on Nov. 2. We had just celebrated Halloween. Some of the plastic skeletons were still hanging on the storefront. It was most definitely not beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And yet, crooning in the background, Michael Bublé insisted otherwise. That day in A.J.’s, I was forcefully exposed to a narrative that directly contradicted reality.
Nothing’s wrong with celebrating holidays early. Any sane person would agree, for example, that Halloween deserves the whole month of October. Yet certain extremist groups have conspired to celebrate Christmas for not one but two months. Some have even suggested that we ought to listen to Christmas music year-round. This seemingly innocuous practice threatens the very foundations of western civilization.
Listening to Christmas music during the majority of November is unjust. It does not give Thanksgiving proper consideration. In addition, it’s been said that “there’s no such thing as Thanksgiving music.” Obviously these people have never heard Led Zeppelin’s song “Thank You,” which is perfectly suited to our current season. In other words, Thanksgiving is cast to the side, not only because gratitude is a dying virtue in our society, but because Thanksgiving is not associated with instant gratification and pleasure the way Christmas is.
Justice and gratitude are not the only virtues under attack. Temperance is “the virtue of moderation in desires and pleasures, especially those of emotions,” according to encyclopedia.com. Listening to Christmas music is a symptom of intemperance. A truly virtuous and holy life is defined by a proper balance of feasting and fasting. This balance is destroyed when we move straight from one feast, Halloween, to another, Christmas, with no pause in between. It is a manifestation of the addiction to pleasure and instant gratification which modern culture so encourages.
Not only does listening to Christmas music shortly after Halloween neglect the importance of a balance between fasting and feasting, but it undermines the value of the feast itself. The birth of Christ is worth celebrating, but it dilutes the joy of Christmas music to listen to it for two months. By the time Christmas actually arrives, the festive tracklist has played out. If we were to play Christmas music year-round, every song would be as overplayed as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
We must stop this. We must return to civilized living. We must wait to listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving.
