My favorite winter solstice song [Thanks, Om]
It’s a question most of us seem to have pondered at some point: When should stores start on the Christmas season..?
Shoppers Drug Mart pulled Christmas music from its almost 1,200 stores across Canada at midnight Friday after hearing complaints from customers that they weren’t quite ready for the season to be jolly.
“Hi everyone, due to recent complaints around the Christmas music being played in stores we want to advise you that as of midnight EST tonight, all Christmas music will be suspended until further notice. We do take customer feedback to heart, and it does lead to change,” the chain announced on its Facebook page.
The posting has drawn more than 7,300 “likes” and almost 6,000 comments as of Monday morning, the majority of them positive…
“This is awesome. Christmas has been rammed down consumer’s throats earlier and earlier each year. I will be shopping at your store more often to avoid it!” wrote Lori Anne Stoute.
James MacFarlane said Christmas music in stores makes him fell “like being trapped in an endless jukebox.”
“Thank you!” MacFarlane wrote. “It turns me off of even going into stores over the holiday season knowing it’s endless Christmas music everywhere. Having two months of it is insane.”
Wayne Gerand Martin said hearing the sounds of the season eight hours a day “would drive me nuts. It would take the Christmas spirit out of the employees.”
“Your employees probably are thanking you too — having to listen to Christmas music for 2 months is just too long,” wrote Janet Williams.
This will be reported on the nutball AM radio circuit as a Canadian Assault on Christmas. No doubt.
Consumers (people) have spoken.
To bad people (citizens) can’t be bothered with political speech.
It’s a question most of us seem to have pondered at some point: When should stores start on the Christmas season..? /// “Everybody knows” you start celebrating the winter solstice after Halloween…. unless you are like me and have your Xmas cheer going all year round. Some good folks like McCullough will call me an apologist and suggest I move to Korea.
TO KOREA!!!!!!!!! Just because I don’t share his mania.
Imagine that?
McCullough suggested North Korea; so you can be closer to your beloved Santa and have holiday cheer all the Year Round.
Ho ho ho!
Good for them! Costco near me started putting out Christmas items the week after Labor Day!
I say the Christmas Season doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving.
Of course, in Canada, Thanksgiving is October 12, so let me say the fourth week of November.
Cheers!
Its called marketing. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Lots of merchandise moves for the Christmas season. It takes time to place it and process it all in time for the Holiday. So it shows, but you don’t have to play the music until after Thanksgiving in my opinion.
Good call. December 1st and no sooner.
In high school I cleaned branch banks in the evenings. The bank had a strict policy of no Christmas music or decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. And every decoration/music came down the day after New Years.
During and just after college I worked as a security guard at a Telecom company office/manufacturing plant. The plant president had a long loop of Christmas/holiday songs he would start playing the first of November. Most everybody ignored it during the day because it was only background noise to the daily grind, but us poor guards working 2nd and 3rd shifts were driven nuts by it. With nothing else to distract us, the continuous loop of the same songs in the same order for 60+ days bordered on cruel and unusual. Months later I might start humming a few notes to a fellow guard and he would launch into a babbling rant about “that damnable music”.
I dearly wanted to post a link from youtube for “Dear Santa” by Sean Morey but I couldn’t seem to get it to play. Funny song if anyone wants to search for it and can get it to play.
Hey !!!… Shoppers Drug Mart when are you going to put up the Buddha tree? Before or after Thanksgiving?
I love holiday music. I say holiday music because some of it is religious in nature and some of it is “profane”. Most of it is highly sentimental. But not all of it is geared towards Christmas. I’ve been collecting some music I’m calling Thanksgiving music, because I’ve always felt this very important holiday has been overrun by the “marketing season”. There’s a fair amount of hammered dulcimer in it, but the point is to serve as a backdrop for reflection on the past fall season (my favorite time of year). It also serves to hold off on the assault of the overuse of Christmas music in public spaces. It needs to be toned WAY down.
I remember when WOOD radio made a big deal of playing Christmas music 24 hours – on Christmas Day. Then it became Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (to be done at midnight Dec 26.) Now, anywhere you go, you can find a station that will play 24 hour Christmas music even before Thanksgiving. And it stops at midnight, Dec 26. Yikes! Thanks alot, Clear Channel.
Anyway I think the retailers are missing out on something important here. The 12 Days of Christmas occur between Dec 24 and Jan 6. Most people take at least some time off during this period. Save the shopping season for this period, sprinkling in public Christmas music only lightly after Thanksgiving, but plug it harder during the 12 days (when everyone is returning gifts anyway). This way we can enjoy Thanksgiving, slow down the December season for year-end stuff, then go nuts during the 12 days.
A change is as good as a rest. Seed planted. Goodnight all.
Lets see,,
I started seeing Xmas goods, 1st of October..
In mid-October, Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses were sold with the Christmas packaging; red, green, & regular tin-foil colored wrappings at a Walgreen’s. I almost took a picture of it just for the fact that it was so early for Christmas merchandise to be out.
Great, then I will know what to wrap up for gifts. Fireworks for the 4th of July would make a great Xmas gift.
Pre-lit would be a bonus!