The Creep

There's nothing new about the Christmas season creeping up on us earlier and earlier every year, although it had seemed that nothing would push it back past Thanksgiving. That, I know I thought, was a popular enough holiday that it would stand its ground as a firebreak against further Yuletide creep. There's the big meal, the iconography, the associated football games and all the traditions, few of which honestly require any unpleasant activities such as giving. Still, it ultimately was no match for the juggernaut.

I say that Thanksgiving has given way because of something I have been made aware of recently. Each radio market has at least one station which gives way to Christmas music every year as the holiday grows near. Typically it seems that it is a soft rock station, which says much about the nature of that genre's appeal. In LA, the station best known for its Christmas music is KOST. They have not yet begun their Christmas music programming.

Another station has, however. As I write this, it has been a few days at least since they have commenced their challenge to the reigning champion of LA Christmas music. I confess to being a sucker for Christmas music, so I'm listening to that station whenever I have the radio on. At the same time, I am aghast at how early this suggest the holiday is kicking off these days. To think that people are looking past such a critical holiday as Thanksgiving makes me sad. One wonders what could halt the expansion of the Christmas season.

Perhaps there are too many holidays packed into the final quarter of the year. I suppose that revered occasions cannot really be planned in such ways, the compression of the various presidential birthday holidays into Presidents' Day aside. I don't know what the remedy for this creep is, or even really how to explain that it's a problem. I just know that as I feel my heart warmed by carols, I also feel it ill at ease from how soon this has come to pass.