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Dogs seem to like it, but right now I’m asking myself, “Can humans ever get too much holiday music?” You know, so much that they start to turn into Grinches because they’re annoyed with the non-stop, silent night music everywhere they go?
I think this reaction is probably extreme because holiday music like all good things, must be consumed in moderation. Listening to more than a half hour of it at a time does make me think about stuff like the long-term harm that might come from all the radiation I receive from my cell phones and tablets using Wi-Fi. This is the kind of thinking that happens after long-term exposure to holiday music.
It’s so joyous that after too much of it you’re thinking of the damage that might come from overdosing on it.
I wondered what a campfire with guitar playing and singing would sound like this time of year. I mean,  summer campfires feature a well-rounded playlist of songs provided the guitar players and singers have any repertoire at all. If during the 12 Days of Christmas a campfire sing-along breaks out in someone’s backyard, how long before the guests are sick of the music?
There’s probably a lot of excitement during the first few songs. Lots of singing and hand clapping. Then someone who’s getting tired of all the yule log tunes requests, “Why don’t we get drunk and screw,” by Jimmy Buffett. Suddenly, it’s a feel good sound of a different type and for a different crowd.
There are radio stations devoted to Christmas music. No one sane listens  to them more than a little bit at a time. I picture mental institutions being the biggest purveyors of holiday tunage.

“It helps keep ’em calm,” says Jackson Waylow of Shady Pines Rest Home.

No, I think, what keeps ’em calm are all the pharmaceuticals they’re given that dull the senses and make them impervious to hours on end of Rudolph the Red Nose and his friends.
People are thinking I’m a Scrooge for writing all this. But, just go into a store after Christmas is over and ask the help how it feels not to have holiday music playing throughout the store any longer.
“Every year I feel I can’t take any more, that I’m about to go stark raving mad if I listen to one more second of it and then Christmas is over and my lease on life is renewed.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if they played some blues in between all that Reindeer crap, just to mix it up a little. After all, the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.”
“Frosty the snowman may have been a jolly, happy soul, but he really brings me down after the third time hearing about him.”
“Would it kill them to work some Foghat in there, you know, just as a break to all the ho ho ho-ing that goes on forever and a day?”
“If somebody tried singing Happy Birthday more than once it’d be kind of like the same thing. You know what I mean?”
“It really doesn’t make me any happier. If they were still playing that shit when customers brought their returns in the day after Christmas, someone would go off. I’m telling ya’. No one is served by endless Christmas music.”
“I think it backfires the whole retail concept. I mean, guys avoid shopping until the last minute because they want to avoid hearing all that stuff that’s playing overhead. I think it makes them want to leave the store quicker, too. They don’t want to incur any more brain damage than they have to.”
I guess the moral of the story is don’t listen to too much of anything, let alone holiday music, or it may take you a long while to undo whatever foul mood you get in. Dogs do seem to like listening to holiday music, though. Go figure.
 

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