Musings of a Loquacious Mind

I Dread Thanksgiving

I dread Thanksgiving. I note with mounting horror how the pages fall off the calendar.

I'm not against turkey or ham or the gluttonous consumption of yams. I'm not afraid of doorbuster deals and throngs of sleepy-eyed shoppers. I have no phobia of three-story-building-high balloons, nor even Al Roker commenting on them ("Can you believe they take 42 handlers?" yes, I can).

Why do I dread Thanksgiving? Because it seems to be the day that more and more radio stations go to "All Christmas until Christmas!" formats. There is no better way to really start to erode Christmas cheer than 24/7 Christmas music.

I realize it's easy to change the station, but every store in the world seems to play these stations. They play in every office. They suck my very soul.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby's take on "Little Drummer Boy" is golden. Mariah Carey (much as I hate to say it)'s "All I Want for Christmas is You" may be one of the best recent additions to Christmas music there is. "Mary Did You Know" has the ability to make me cry. Once a year I do have a need to hear "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses and the Band Aid diddy "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

But needing to hear everyone and his brother (and Nick Lachey and HIS brother) warble through "O Holy Night" for a month? I don't think so. How many times do you need to hear "Feliz Navidad" or "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer"? I'll tell you. Zero.

Christmas songs are supposed to be used to make the holidays a little more fun. But they're like, say, garlic on a pizza. When you sprinkle one minced clove over a pie the result is heavenly; when you saturate the pizza in garlic it not only makes that one pizza inedible, it makes the mere thought of pizza make you want to get sick.

But you can't stop Thanksgiving, and you can't stop the Christmas music toxic flood.

Humbug.