Enough Already!

I generally look forward to the holidays every year; it’s a time of giving and sharing and friendship and family and usually nothing but good times. I don’t expect this year to be any different. However, I was reminded yesterday (yesterday, already!) that there are a couple things about the season that I’m dreading. You know the usual things—relatives invading your space for days on end, constantly having to keep the house clean for drop-ins, cooking for several thousand people, and the incessant, syrupy Christmas music.

On the subject of the latter, I think there ought to be a law that radio stations (and stores, too, for that matter) should be prohibited from playing Christmas music until at least the day after Thanksgiving. I don’t mind Christmas music, in fact, I quite enjoy it sometimes. But, damn, do I have to start listening to “Holly Jolly Christmas” before I’ve mowed my lawn for the last time? Likewise, stores should not be allowed to put out Christmas decorations until after Halloween. It’s just wrong that on one side of the seasonal aisle Santa is merrily cavorting with his reindeer, whilst on the other side of the aisle, gruesome, bloody rubber limbs are displayed next to giant hairy oozing rats.

But what drives me absolutely bat-shit from November until January has to do with Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky. “Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky?” you ask. Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about: the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.
I don’t even need to describe it—the same ubiquitous eighteen glockenspieled notes pop into everyone’s head (count ‘em if you don’t believe me), followed by some warm-voiced grandfatherly-sounding man encouraging you to buy vinyl siding or a subscription to Netflix or something else completely unrelated to Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s sound advertising…no eight seconds of music is more evocative of the holiday season. It instantly sets the mood. And it’s non-religious, not to mention part of the public domain, so no royalties need to be paid upon its use. But it’s gotten to the point that every time I hear even the first four or five notes, I want to puncture my eardrums with the top of the Chrysler Building. I want to burn every glockenspiel in existence. I want to dig up Tchaikovsky and kick him right in his shriveled nuts. But being that we have the kinds of laws a civilized society should, I settle for changing the radio station or TV channel. All I can say is, thank [insert the name of your deity here] for the ability to fast forward through the commercials on DVR’d shows.

So if anybody involved in advertising or marketing happens to come across my little corner of cyberspace, I beg you, please, kill the urge to use The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. Because if you don’t, I will find out who made the commercial, I will hunt you down, find you, and roast your chestnuts over an open glockenspiel fire.

P.S.: I want everybody to add a comment with every time you come across a different ad with that music in it! Let’s see how big of a list we can compile!