By Anita Garner
The debate about Christmas music starting too early has already begun on social media. I spent years on the radio and all of us on the air worked from a playlist which we didn’t often get to select. Program directors and consultants and sometimes the station manager’s family decided what we played. That last one isn’t a joke.
Just before in-earnest holiday madness began, Christmas songs were slowly merged into the playlist, but no matter when they started, someone on the air staff hated it.
Here’s a scene from a typical radio programming meeting, where on-air people wrestled with the Program Director.
PD: So guys – and Anita – you’ll notice on your playlist that we’re rotating one Christmas song each hour starting…
ME: …Couldn’t we play more than one each hour?
EVERYONE ELSE: No!
PD: And then by week three of the season, we’ll play four an hour.
ME: Couldn’t we play more than that?
EVERYONE ELSE: Shut up, Anita.
ME: Could I have more Christmas music just on MY show?
ON-AIR PERSON: I’ll be calling in sick.
ANOTHER ON-AIR PERSON: You can’t call in sick, because I’m scheduling all my dental work now. I’ll be gone for a month.
The foregoing is only slightly exaggerated. I haven’t met many people who like Christmas music as much as I do. My personal Christmas music marathon begins when I say so and ends when I decide it ends and there are the occasional times during the year when I dip in for a song or two when I need a little Christmas. There have been more than a few of those dips during this particular year.
It doesn’t take much to bring on the spirit. I go over to You Tube and hear guitarist, Chris Whiteman, play anything from his holiday collection, James Taylor singing Joni Mitchell’s “River” and “In The Bleak Midwinter,” (this version from “The Crown” on Netflix) Vince Guaraldi playing anything, and on and on. A few favorite holiday songs and lights that twinkle and the holiday season is right here, right now.
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I usually resent hearing Christmas music before Halloween but this year: BRING IT! This has been such a trying year, I am eager for whatever joy I can get, including Christmas music. I applaud people who have started putting up garlands and lights and I am certainly getting my Christmas tree shortly after Thanksgiving.
Grace – I’m right there with you. Bring it on. I just passed through the kitchen where my daughter is putting a pork roast in the crock pot and she has Il Volo music cranked up while she cooks. It’s beautiful. Those baby faces with the big beautiful voices. Here in my office, the little white lights get plugged in pre-dawn and the music comes along at the same time. Right now it’s every holiday song that speaks to my heart.