A pressing issue always returns to cause debate around the season of the Yuletide. I was reminded of this during a Friday stroll around the mall. I was in a store when this thought came into my head — to be more specific, my ears. It came out the speakers, arrogantly being played without a care. It started off as a slight ringing of bells, no louder than a whisper. Then slowly elevated to a massive uproar of festive greetings… Christmas music was being played.
Nothing irritates me more than when overexcited shopkeepers decide to play Christmas music directly following Halloween or Remembrance Day. Sure, that’s a great way to celebrate a day of sugar hangovers. Nothing like the bellows of the Merry Christmas to You to remind us about how much candy we ate last night. And who could forget about our fallen soldiers. What a better way to honour the courage of great men and women with nothing more than Jingle Bell Rock. Now, I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m a Christmas Scrooge. I am nothing of the sort. I find Christmas the most magical time of year when streets are lined with lights, and homes donned with overly decorated evergreens.
I remember a time when Christmas was built on the idea of togetherness and giving. Where children didn’t care about presents and gifts, but instead cared about family and just the idea of every little thing being precious. Now as consumerism and commercialism continues to consume the spirit of Christmas, the holiday season has become one of the greediest times of the year. A month long panic over desire of the materialistic. Fueled by adverts showing massive sales with the likes of Boxing Day and Black Friday, we’ve been programmed by society to focus on the superficial rather than what is truly important.
Traditional Christmas music is one thing, but nothing scares me more than famous pop stars trying to revamp festive carols into catchy Top 50 pop songs. The Christmas album has become something of a rite of passage for America’s pop music scene. Every famous artist seems to have a Christmas album. Mariah Carey, Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, and recently, Mary J Blige, have all added their own artistic flair to create Christmas music to range from various genres. Now anyone can rock out to festive tunes from a pop, rock, hip hop, soul, or R&B perspective. The scary fact about all this is that these albums really sell. The festive gobble of society to consume these albums is just the clever marketing of the music industry playing to the fallacy of America’s holiday spirit.
You see, Christmas music being played early doesn’t just merely show the over eagerness of festive practitioners. It’s a symbol to me for what went wrong with the holiday. It’s a constant reminder that sparks a society to prepare themselves for the commercialism that is about to unfold. Something about hearing Jingle Bells from a mall speaker riles up the public into a drive to buy buy buy!
Where even legendary Christmas figures, slowly become part of corporation ploy to monetize a holiday season. Santa Claus has become an iconic image of Coca Cola. Â The clever adverts of the company containing Father Christmas drinking cola as a way to create the popular drink into something festive. Even one of the most beloved characters of Christmas media, Rudolph, was nothing but a consumer plot by former department store, Montgomery Ward. It was originally created to sell colouring books to the American public. Soon after, Rudolph became iconic throughout the world as a symbol of Christmas time.
Yet what people don’t realise is that, like how Santa Claus’s image was taken by corporations to sell their products, the beloved Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was nothing more than a by-product of holiday consumerism. From that manufactured character, the image of the fabled 9th reindeer of Santa Claus became great ploys by companies who abused it’s image to cash in on films, songs, and television.
It just seems the season that was meant to be a spirit of selflessness and giving, slowly became a season of buying and taking. The magical season was lost to the swift hand of consumerism and commercialism. A holiday whose message was altered and tarnished into something that could sell the products of corporations. The mysticism and magic of the season were all fabricated by the clever hands of corporations to induce images that would make the public lose their sense of selflessness. That old Christmas dogma, “it’s better to give than receive,” seems lost to the glamour of Christmas trees, whose bristles are nothing but artificial plastic. Seeming like a grim reminder to what this holiday slowly became.
Early Christmas music has greater value than celebrating a holiday whose meaning was completely lost. It shows our willingness to go along with the consumerism and commercialism that this season now upholds. So when I say, I hate when Christmas music is being played early, take it with a grain of sand and see the importance that surrounds those festive tunes.
I agree with the idea that consumers of the holiday season can get a tad excessive in their expressions. It is great to see more exposure brought to this issue. Yet, I still have this impending feeling that I need to put on my Michael Buble Christmas album.