Holiday music

I don't mind holiday music. Really, I don't. But some radio stations now start playing it before October is done and by November it's non-stop. Enough, already! Just make it stop, please!

I actually have Christmas music CDs (17) so obviously I like them. But frankly radio and TV are just so saturated with the stuff that by the time I used to think about breaking out those CDs, well, I'm sick of the whole holiday season and just want it over with. Does that make me Scrooge? Oh well. It's the way I feel. People who are terminally perky, flitting about with caffeine-fueled energy, who just love the season so much will never understand.

All but two of my holiday music CDs are country, the two exceptions being The Moody Blues' December and Elvis Presley's If Every Day Was Like Christmas. I actually did play December just the other day, but only because I was finishing up my modern era Moody Blues stuff and figured, what the heck, let's play December too because, well, it is that time of year anyway. So it was more an accident of timing in what I happened-to-be-playing rather than the obvious holiday season reason, although that factored in on a secondary level.

The main question I have about holiday music is this: How many frickin' covers of White Christmas, The Christmas Song, and Silent Night do we need? They may be great songs, but after the first 5000 covers of them, do we really need the next teeny-bopper flash-in-the-pan artist doing another overblown vocal exercise version? Again, I say "ENOUGH!"

Of the Christmas CDs I have, my favorites are the ones which feature artists doing either all original tunes or at least a 50-50 mix. And if I had to pick five favorites they would probably be:

Clint Black—Looking For Christmas
Alan Jackson—Honky Tonk Christmas
Toby Keith—Christmas To Christmas
George Strait—Merry Christmas Strait To You
Aaron Tippin—A December To Remember

Most people would probably hate them because they're different and unfamiliar, but that's exactly why I like them. I've listened to them enough in years past that they're familiar to me, but I haven't heard them so much that they make me want to chuck a CD in the garbage if I hear it one more time.

UPDATE: By making this post I actually kind of put myself in the mood to listen to some of my Christmas CDs, so that's what I did. I played my favorites above, plus a couple others. I really do enjoy them when I play them. It's just that the overall Christmas season is just too darn long and too much—too saturated on TV, radio, and in newspapers. It's hard for me to ignore all that and not let it get to me.