There are two kinds of people in this world:
Those heathens who play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and those who don’t.
One of the unexpected boons of college life is the fact I don’t really have time to watch television anymore. It really insulates me from all those stupid, annoying and maddeningly-catchy commercials businesses across the country blast across the airwaves as we approach this time of year.
I even upgraded to Spotify Premium recently, so I now miss all the Christmas music playlist ads I had been forced to sit through previously. My roommate and I have already had this important discussion and made a mutual agreement: No Christmas music in our room until after we return from Thanksgiving break.
Therefore, this year I was perhaps the most isolated from this musical treason that I had ever been.
So imagine my absolute inner heartbreak last week when I returned to The Observer’s office to hear Christmas music — Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” to be exact — floating peacefully into the hallway.
The perpetrator, ladies and gentlemen, was none other than The Observer’s Managing Editor: John “Jack” Clarke Rooney, the man whom I once foolishly credited as having the best musical taste of the entire office.
And now, as I sit and write this, two more of my so-called office “friends” have now joined this traitorous cult: Margaret Hynds, news editor, and Austin Taliaferro, a Viewpoint copyeditor.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Margaret and Austin’s dagger-storm of choice — Michael Bublé’s Christmas album — as much as the next person.
But there is a line we cannot destroy: the sanctity of Christmas music.
Christmas is special precisely because it only comes once a year — we have to wait for it. When we say something like, “It was like Christmas in July!” that statement only has meaning because it can never be Christmas in July.
It’s the same thing with Christmas music: If we heard Mariah Carey’s sweet melodies in July, where would the novelty be come December?
Now I understand the basic principle of the simple-minded argument that July and mid-November are far from the same thing, but if we accept it now — already essentially destroying the excitement of the greatest holiday of them all: Thanksgiving — where do we draw the line?
We need to draw the line at Dec. 1. That’s my eventual goal, but I’m willing to go a little softer for the next few years to ease the world into the transition, so I’ll accept Thanksgiving as the line for now.
There will be no line if we continue to tolerate this blasphemy, though. Every year someone will push it another week, another day, another hour, another minute forward and suddenly our grandchildren will be listening to Bublé’s smooth vocals sipping on ice-cold lemonade on the beach during summer vacation.
Already, we’ve lost the meaning of the “25 Days of Christmas.” Now we’re quickly moving past the abomination that is Black Friday: sales begin on Thanksgiving itself.
So people everywhere, please, for the love of the very holiday spirit you are so eager to immerse yourself in:
Stop listening to Christmas music.
