The day after Thanksgiving marked the commercial beginning of the Holiday season, and consequently, Christmas music is everywhere -- in the hotel lobby where we stayed over Thanksgiving weekend, in many restaurants, and of course in every retail store. All of which would combine to drive me crazy, were it not for the fact that I can avoid these places for a month (except maybe for brewpubs that pipe in Xmas music) -- thank goodness for internet shopping.
I suppose I'm coming across as a Scrooge, and I guess I deserve such appellation. Still, I don't mind the holidays, or the gift exchanging (Kathy's the one who minds exchanging gifts on account of the fact that there's very little I want). I could even tolerate going into real live stores were it not for the insipid selection of holiday music that pervades each and every one of them. Don't you think that one of them could come up with an ad campaign where the central theme is a promise not to play a single holdiay tune -- a respite for weary holiday shoppers eager to hear plain old boring Muzak?
But even as I'm moaning about the misery I experience when I find myself in any of these places, I occasionally take a moment to think of those less fortunate than I, the poor souls who work at these places, stuck with the unending drone of overly chipper holiday songs, on top of the holiday rush they face. For their sake, I hope they possess a sense of self-survival that enables them to tune out the tunes; otherwise I can't see that their days will be merry and bright.
