By Elijah Lindsey | Contributor
For me, the scariest part of Halloween is knowing that the very next day I can expect to hear the dreadful “All I Want for Christmas is You” playing on the majority of radio stations and shopping centers. I understand there really is no genre of Thanksgiving music, but can we please celebrate one holiday at a time?
The so-called “Christmas creep” has begun. For the next two months, people feel the need to start blasting Christmas music non-stop. How did we get to this point in our holiday culture? Have we overshadowed the warm gathering of Thanksgiving with the cold corporate giant that is Christmas?
Unfortunately, I believe the true Christmas spirit was lost long ago when corporations began to brand this celebration into the biggest money event of the year, simply in the way Christmas is marketed to people — by playing holiday music repeatedly and getting people into the Christmas “spirit,” ergo slowly brainwashing folks to pull out their wallets more freely.
Now before you start calling someone a Grinch or Scrooge, there is actual science to speak to the fact that playing holiday music too early can negatively affect someone’s mental health.
“Listening to Christmas music too early into the holiday season may affect mental health by triggering feelings of stress. Hearing a Christmas song can spark thoughts of all the things you have to do before the holiday, like shopping, party planning and traveling,” clinical psychologist Linda Blair said to CBS News.
We must not forget the brave souls of shopping mall and retail employees who endure the full force of Christmas music. Each year, these workers are pushed to the brink of sanity as they must suffer the seemingly never-ending vicious cycle of “Santa Baby.” In her study, Blair also emphasized that workers “tune it out… and become unable to focus on anything else,” spending all their energy trying not to hear what they’re hearing.
So instead of two front teeth, this Christmas all I want is to celebrate it when it is the proper time to do such. Thanksgiving, being the awkward middle child of the end-of-year holidays, deserves more attention. Preventing the Christmas creep does not make someone a Bah Humbug, but rather an advocate for a more traditional, sacred and stress-free holiday celebration of Christmas.
Elijah Lindsey is a senior communication specialist major from Houston.
