My annual rant

I was quite disappointed to see all the Christmas stuff up on campus this week. Lit Christmas trees in the rooms where we have church. Hanging ornaments at the Cougareat. Large trees in the library. I don't understand why the only holiday BYU decorates for is Christmas, because Christmas is the holiday when there will be the smallest amount of people on campus. The only times when there are big breaks from classes are August and December, and in August there is education week. I think BYU should spend that time and money for holidays when people will actually be around. Like Easter. Or the Fourth of July. Or--here's a novel idea--Thanksgiving.

This is what bothers me most about early Christmas. It's like people forget all about Thanksgiving. Some might say, "I can still enjoy Thanksgiving while having up Christmas decorations and listening to Christmas music." But I don't think that's completely possible. I don't think it's possible to do that without saying, at least to some degree, "Thanksgiving, you're nice, but you're just not good enough for me."

A lot of people seem to think that as soon as Halloween is over (or even before it's over), it's time to start thinking about Christmas stuff. They either think, "Halloween is over, which means it's Christmastime," or else they think, "Halloween is over, which means it's Thanksgiving, which means it's time for Christmas stuff." Either way, it's overlooking Thanksgiving. And they're celebrating Christmas nearly two months early!

I abstain from Christmas until after Thanksgiving to respect Thanksgiving. But I also do it to respect Christmas. Some people think I must be a grinch or hate Christmas. On the contrary, I love Christmas. Christmas is a special time, so I don't want to bastardize it by celebrating it early. If I did, I would no longer associate Christmas stuff with Christmas. I want to keep special, so I keep it in its proper time frame.

Some people say, "Shouldn't we have Christmas in our hearts all year round?" Well, we should have feelings of peace on earth, goodwill to men and love and joy and happiness and all that year round. But if you think we need Christmas to have those things, then that's sad.

Some people say they could listen to Christmas music year round. If you did that, then it would no longer be Christmas music. It would just be ordinary music. I think that the draw of Christmas music is the emotions attached to it, and listening to it when it's not Christmas dilutes those emotions.

I sincerely doubt it's the quality of the music that people like, since most popular Christmas music you hear isn't very good. This is a rant I could explain even during Christmastime, but it's especially annoying at Thanksgiving. It seems that most Christmas music falls into three main categories:

1. Good music that is overplayed. Everyone likes Nat King Cole, but do we really need to hear "The Christmas Song" yet again? He sang other songs, you know.
2. Music that might have been good at some point, but it is outdated. I cringe whenever "Jingle Bell Rock" comes on. Both the voice and the instruments are annoying. Maybe it was cool in the 1950s, but it's not anymore. There is some music that is good after fifty or sixty years. This is not an example of such music.
3. Music that was never good to begin with. The best example of this is that [expletive] awful "Christmas Canon": "Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Merry Christmas on this night on this night on this Merry Christmas night" AAUGH! As far as I'm concerned, this song should have never been made. And if it was made, it shouldn't have been recorded. And if it was recorded, it shouldn't be played. And if it's played, it most certainly should not be played FIFTEEN TIMES A DAY FOR TWO MONTHS OF THE YEAR!!! Whoever decided it was a good idea to record the song should be shot with a BB gun. Whoever decided it was a good idea to play it over and over should be slowly, painfully tortured by being required to listen to this dreadful song on repeat 24 hours a day for three months, which is almost what they do to us. I have never met one solitary person who actually likes this song, but I've met plenty of people who hate it.

Now, if these songs were the only Christmas songs that existed, I could understand it. But they're not. Think about all the musicians there are who have recorded Christmas albums; and if not albums, EPs; and if not EPs, singles. Why, just this year there are new Christmas albums by Rod Stewart, Cee Lo Green, Lady Antebellum, Colbie Caillat, Scotty McCreery, Blake Shelton, and Christina Perri. (Funny side story--Last weekend I told my mom I wanted Christina Perri's new Christmas EP [which I bought this weekend], so she said she'd keep an eye out when she went to the store. She came back and said, "No Jan Perri." Only in my life could Christina Perri be called Jan Perri!) There's seemingly an infinite supply of Christmas music. But what do we get? "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Christmas Canon."Over and over and over.

I choose to respect both Thanksgiving and Christmas by observing Thanksgiving. People in my ward have been impressed with my two Thanksgiving ties. I went home last weekend to put up Thanksgiving decor, such as Pilgrim lights and inflatable turkeys. I've been eating candy corn and fall-colored M&Ms (I bought six bags of Thanksgiving candy on November 5). And I've been listening to Thanksgiving music.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of Thanksgiving music (only 25 songs), and a lot of it isn't very good. But considering the quality of the above mentioned Christmas music, that's not much of a loss. Hymns 91-95 are Thanksgiving songs. Most of my recordings of them are those terrible recordings from LDS.org. I don't understand how they possibly made them so terrible; they could have visited any BYU ward and asked for a few volunteers to sing and play piano and it would have been ten times better than what they have. But it's free Thanksgiving music.

Hymns make up a significant amount of my Thanksgiving music, and I have a few other odds and ends. But the other bulk of my music is songs from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I love listening to those songs--not so much because of the musical quality (although it's certainly not bad), but because of the strong emotions attached to them. I believe I have every song available from that special, but it took me four CDs to collect them all, and there are still three pieces of music unavailable: the music that plays when Franklin and Marcie meet Peppermint Patty at her house, the music that plays when Snoopy and Woodstock dress as Pilgrims, and the brass version of "Linus and Lucy" that plays when they make their popcorn-and-toast feast.

I didn't download this song, because I don't use iTunes and I can't find it on Amazon. I can't decide whether I should be disappointed or relieved. 

I am so excited for Thanksgiving this week. It's one of my favorite days of the year. The family gets together, there's lots of good food, the weather's wonderful, and it's just a good day to relax and be thankful.

And I will happily start listening to good (non-radio) Christmas music. The day after Thanksgiving.