Ding-a-ling
So I’m in the store checking out the post-Halloween sales of rubber skeletons, red-eyed rats and bloody dripping hands. Suddenly, faint and coy like a whisper rises the jaunty tune of something familiar. What, I wonder? What is that sound? Why, it’s the spirited tintinnabulation of Christmas music! Oh, the merriment! Oh, the nostalgia!
Oh, the roiling in my stomach and throbbing around my temporal lobes.
Call me Ebenezer McGrinch if you want to, jolly one. But Christmas music in early November is so repellant to me, I believe stores that play it ought to be fined a thousand bucks every time the words “snow, Santa, reindeer or hark” are used. And five thousand clams any time a song makes utterance of a shelled legume being cooked for consumption within uncontained flames.
In the days immediately before Christmas, a dulcet carol will fill your heart with the comfort of love, friendship and gratitude. A month or more prior, and those sounds are like the rattling of boney fingers reaching for your wallet and demanding that you pay a holiday boon. It is the sound of crowded stores and icy sidewalks, screaming children and chill winds blowing down your back.
True Christmas songs, I believe, were written and performed in hopes of spreading joy and inspiring reflection once the holiday has arrived. It wasn’t created to draw impoverished shoppers to the toy aisle to buy little Jethro the year’s most beguiling and expensive gadget.
The commercial bastards of the world exploited the essence of Christmas and now they have bastardized the music. It’s a shame, people. It’s a goddamn shame. Fortunately, there’s still time to pick up Vegetation for the one that you love. Sure, it’s a shameless plug. But at least I didn’t sing it.
I’ve got your stocking stuffer right here.
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November 15th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
My God, I couldn’t agree more.
This year, I saw Christmas decorations displayed along with Halloween costumes. Give me a break.
But, I almost feel worse for the employees that have to endure the repetition of those songs, over and over, and over.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I eagerly await the first court case where a store clerk who bludgeoned a mall shopper with a fruit basket pleads a form of insanity developed after two months of listening to the barking dogs version of “Jingle Bells.” There’s not a jury in the world that will convict her.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Yup. I was in Wally-World today, the sound of barking, jingle bell dogs was deafening. I rushed through my shopping just to escape the awful noise. Too bad, too. I was there to shop for THANKSGIVING! You know? The holiday that comes BEFORE Christmas?? Sheesh…damn bastards!
August 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Thanks for such a great read! I always enjoy reading your blog.