Christmas Music in October! [gasp]

I am well known for listening to Christmas music as soon as is publicly acceptable each year. I love reminiscing about winters past, family gatherings, all that jazz. But, like most people, I find that 2 months is about all I can take of nearly nonstop Christmas music before I get jaded. All the same, if holiday music shows up sporadically on my Pandora station in October or February, I'm fine with it.

But I am very aware that other people have strong opinions about when it is and is not acceptable to begin playing holiday tunes in a public setting. I had one gentleman approach me when I worked at the movie theatre absolutely livid that there was Christmas music playing on October 29th, which is way before the universal Christmas music ok-day of Halloween...

The trouble was that the CD targeted for November 1st had arrived early and we were contractually obliged to play the most recent MovieTunes as soon as it arrived. I explained this and he was still upset. He demanded to file a complaint with whoever made the music selections. I explained that it was a separate company and that frankly (fyi: never, ever be frank with customers, no good will come of it), I doubt any good will come of it, since it is only a two day difference from the acceptable day, which is when they had intended to start playing this music anyways. At this point the gentleman starts cursing, demands to speak to the manager, who is not in, and then leaves the building with steam streaking out his ears and profanity streaming out his mouth.

Anyways, today I was in the local Borders and a subtle but discernible saxophone rendition of Silent Night was playing over the speakers. Now again, I love Christmas music and would not object to easing into the holiday season a few weeks early. But in this busy bookstore I realized that I was annoyed. This warranted some introspection. I discovered that I was not annoyed by the music itself, which was actually quite pleasant, but that I was annoyed that I needed to appear annoyed to fit in with the crowd around me. And that's just dumb. Spent the remainder of my stay in the store tapping my foot and humming through a smile.