Five Reasons You Should Have Started Listening to Christmas Music on November 1

Not even politics divides our country as violently as the “when-to-start-listening-to-Christmas-music” debate. You have the traditionalists who, if they hear a Christmas song being played before Christmas Eve, go into cardiac arrest. At the other extreme are the churches who sing “Joy to the World” in their regular worship rotation.

Today, I’m settling it once and for all. Here are five reasons you should have started listening to Christmas music on November 1st:

1 – Waiting until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music is like waiting until you’ve already started peeing to unzip your pants. By then, it’s just too late, and you might as well skip it.

2 – When I was a kid, and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer came on the radio, my dad would always kind of laugh, and then my mom would give him that look that asked, “Are you going to let our children listen to this violent ridiculousness?” And then he’d come to his senses and change the station. I would like to be reminded of this memory more than one month out of the year.

3 – It’s Christmas, Charlie Brown is a year round album. Seriously. I’ll fight you about that.

4 – The economy is suffering, folks! And it’s a proven fact that people spend more money when there is Christmas music playing in the background. Playing Christmas music in November = job recovery and national debt relief. Playing Christmas music for the owner of Papa John’s = good economic sense.

5 – I find that reminding my kids that Christmas is just around the corner (and beginning this process on November 1st) is a helpful aid in two-months’ worth of behavior modification, instead of just one (ie all that nonsense about coal).

When do you start listening to Christmas music? What’s your favorite Christmas song (and by which artist)?

17 Replies to “Five Reasons You Should Have Started Listening to Christmas Music on November 1”

  1. I begin listening on November 1. I find it interesting that people will almost demonize us Early Listeners, while I don’t really care when they start listening. We even have our trees up already.
    I like The River, The Christmas Song, Please Come Home For Christmas (by The Eagles), We Three Kings/God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman medley by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan,…..well, there just aren’t that many I don’t like. I really like Christmas Wrap by The Waitresses. I don’t like anything sung by Aaron Neville, though.

  2. You make a compelling case, but here’s mine. We are a culture who pushes things earlier and earlier – so that by the time the “thing” actually rolls around, we’re bored and dissatisfied. We are also a culture who wants what we want when we want it – see strawberries in December. I’m not sure these are good things. So I only eat pumpkin stuff in October, November, December and I only listen to Christmas music after I see Santa coming down by Macy’s.

    Those are my hard-core rules . . . but that said, if I was at the Smuckers, I’d belt along with Joy to the World in mid-November. :)

    1. I agree wholeheartedly! The second Santa shows up on Herald Square, and the credits roll, the original Michael W. Smith Christmas album starts playing through the house. And not a moment sooner!

  3. I usually try and resist the urge until Thanksgiving, but usually that is spoiled when I hear a “classic” and I cave early.

    This made me LLOL (Literally Laugh Out Loud):
    1 – Waiting until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music is like waiting until you’ve already started peeing to unzip your pants. By then, it’s just too late, and you might as well skip it.

  4. I have a long standing tradition with a friend from college that Christmas can start no earlier than November 1. So on November 1, the music starts, I begin planning decorations, and start planning what I’m doing for the holidays. Then I usually listen to the music until somewhere around January 15th. It’s a whole season, why limit it to a couple of weeks. Besides there isn’t that much Thanksgiving music to listen to anyway.

  5. In my family it was blaspheme to overshadow Thanksgiving in any way whatsoever and I’m thankful for that. Christmas music early is like saying “I love you” 50 times a day to your wife.. eventually it loses all meaning, you might as well say “Cheese Sandwhich” to her 20 times a day. For me its almost like fasting… be thankful before Thanksgiving, reflect on what you have not what you want or how you want to make people happy, celebrate what God has given you and how he wants to make you happy. Then on Friday.. go for it.. rock around that Christmas tree and give your heart to somebody special.

    and Yes, early Christmas music listeners are spawn of Aliens, unless they are listening to Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums.. that’s fine year round of course.. duh.

  6. No Christmas music until after Thanksgiving for me. Then I binge on it for a month until I get sick of it. My favorite is The Chipmunk Song, by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Either that or Twisted Sister’s A Heavy Metal Christmas. Don’t judge–you asked.

  7. I totally agree! And love #5. I just used the “Santa is watching” line the other week! If my fiancé would “let” me I’d have the house decorated already!

  8. I don’t decorate until the day after Thanksgiving and generally hold off on Christmas tunes until that day as well. Then it’s all Christmas, all the time. But every once in awhile throughout the year, I’ll feel compelled to listen one or two favorite Christmas songs, an urge that grows stronger in November.

    Bebo Norman’s Christmas album is a favorite. I have to conscientiously listen to other albums, ever since his came out.

  9. I decorate the day after Thanksgiving, but we start listening to Christmas music on Thanksgiving day most of the time. The first Christmas music in the house is always MWS original Christmas album (and for some reason, I’ve had to buy that album 3 times because it has gone missing).

    But my favorite Christmas song is Josh Groban’s arrangement of Little Drummer Boy. Ironically, when anyone else sings it, it is one of my LEAST favorite Christmas songs. Just goes to show, Josh Groban can do no wrong! : )

  10. September 17th.

    A few years back, the local high school band went door to door selling Christmas stuff as a fundraiser. I bought a ceramic Santa Claus holding a “how many days until Christmas” countdown thingy that looked like a wrapped Christmas gift. The countdown goes up to 99.

    99 days until Christmas is September 17th.

  11. Christmas music is acceptable to listen to as soon as Cracker Barrel puts it out. That pushes the window back to July 5th! Great read!

  12. I’m definitely not a before-Thanksgiving Christmas person. Thanksgiving night or the next day, that’s when the Christmas music comes on and our tree usually goes up then too. My kids start with the Christmas MOVIES in July though!

  13. Great post! I listen to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb at least once a month all year round.
    But what about a post on when is time to start pulling out the Christmas movies. One of my daughters was playing with her fork at dinner and I couldn’t help but think “you’re gonna shoot your eye out kid”!

  14. I GUESS I AM PROBABLY AFTER THANKSGIVING, MOSTLY – BUT CHRISTMAS IS ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS, OR SHOULD BE, SO WHY NOT IN OUR EARS?. I ALSO GO ALONG WITH THE ARGUMENT, THAT IT CAN GET ‘OLD’ AND MEANINGLESS. BOY AM I ONE CONFUSED INDIVIDUAL? I LOVE MUSIC, AND IT SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY CALENDER RESTRICTIONS.
    I LOVE CHARLOTTE CHURCH SINGING ‘WHAT CHILD IS THIS’, ALWAYS A LONG TIME FAVORITE OF MINE, INCIDENTLY, IT WAS WRITTEN IN 1865.. BUT ON THE COMMERCIAL SIDE, NOTHING CAN COMPARE TO BING CROSBY;S ‘WHITE CHRISTMAS’.

  15. Oh, that’s too funny. With all the debates raging on various websites with pro and con arguments flying from both sides I find your reasons the most compelling. Thanks for easing the tension out there.

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