It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Ug.

As far as Tonya L. Scott-Stevens is concerned, the holidays are right on schedule. The tree is up and decorated with two tote bags worth of Hallmark keepsakes. It’s a bright and glorious thing, which has stood proudly in the Stevens household for most of November, nearly two full months before Christmas.

Crazy, right?

Stevens does have her standards – she won’t get started on Christmas decorating until Halloween is over.

“But after? The gloves are off,” the Lisbon Falls woman says. “It’s my favorite time of year.”

I want to think she’s a mere oddity, but no. Here and there are people who firmly believe that the earlier Christmas celebrations get underway, the better. Wreaths on doors three weeks before Thanksgiving. Blinking lights draped along the eaves and, yes, even Christmas music has its place when most of us are still putting the jack-o-lanterns away.

“I’m ready for it,” a nice Walmart clerk named Nancy tells me. “I think it’s time.”

I brought up the matter only because I was shocked – SHOCKED! – to find that the superstore wasn’t yet blasting Christmas music, and here it was three weeks into November.

Nancy has her reasons for wishing that music upon us.

“It’s nice to listen to music instead of the rumble of voices and the sounds of shopping all day long,” she says. “After a nine-hour shift, it starts to get to you. A little holiday music would be better.”

Perfectly understandable. But for the majority of us, the onslaught of Christmas music – and all that goes with it – is a form of assault. Dogs barking “Jingle Bells” over and over on the radio during your morning commute. Fifteen different versions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” at the stores. Even Clarence Clemons can’t save us from this hell of yuletide cheer – when WBLM plays Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” for the 30th time in one afternoon, you’ll want to rip out your car stereo and fling it into a lake.

Am I right, people? Can’t we at least wait until we’re all doped up on white meat and stuffing before we start filling our brains with holiday music?

That’s the big question. Most people have a fundamental problem with Christmas being shoved down our throats before Thanksgiving – before Halloween, even. Some stores started stocking their shelves with Christmas bling at a time when summer was barely off the calendar. Department stores announce Christmas layaway plans while we’re still in short sleeves. It comes in many forms, but in almost every situation, somebody is trying to sell you something by appealing to your sense of sentiment and nostalgia.

“I think it is way too early,” says Doris Calabrese of Mechanic Falls. “I guess I am a bit of a scrooge ’cause the older I get, the more I hate Christmas because it is way too commercialized. Kids see all the stuff on TV and want it all. To me, it should be more about spending time with your family than receiving gifts. When I was growing up, if we got a couple of small gifts we felt lucky. The stores don’t even let people get through one holiday before shoving the next one in our faces.”

“It would be so great,” suggests Sandy Rozanski of Auburn, “to go back as we were once and to take one holiday at time and do justice to it. It really dampens the spirit because by the time it actually arrives we are sick of it.”

The Santa effect

Bingo. Somewhere along the line, the season of goodwill turned in the season of gluttony and excess. Bringing the Big Man himself into the scene was a major part of it.

According to Historyextra.com, “In 1888 J.P. Robert of Stratford, West Ham (England), unveiled the first Santa’s grotto in his store, and with it he inaugurated a vital Christmas tradition. By the turn of the century, all children wanted to sit on Santa’s knee, and all store owners wanted to induce their mammas to bring them in.”

Santa visiting the stores was the beginning of the end of Christmas as a subdued holiday. By the turn of the 20th century, most stores were decorating their windows, blasting holiday music and trying to entice customers with promises of great deals on the latest playthings. Each year, it begins a little bit earlier, a phenomenon labeled “Christmas creep” by Sun Journal editor and cynic Heather McCarthy.

Some people have come to resent it. In 1968, a West Coast woman started a movement called the Buy Nothing Christmas, a concept that remains alive on the World Wide Web but one whose impact is limited. We still get started in late October and very few forgo shopping.

“Way too early,” says Lou Doucet of Lewiston. “Been hearing it for a month already, in some places. By the time Christmas gets here we are burnt out and can’t wait for December 26th, when it is over.”

It’s not that Doucet begrudges anyone the opportunity to celebrate the holiday. It’s a matter of starting at a more reasonable time of year.

“A week or so before Christmas would be fine,” Doucet says. “Same goes for the radio stations that start 24/7 Christmas music a month before the holiday.”

Agreed. Or not agreed. The problem with opinions is that everybody has one. For some, the sooner the Christmas spirit gets underway, the better. Why not let the world bulk up on good cheer as early as possible?

“No, it’s not too early,” said Rumford’s Karen Wolfe, in response to our query. “Christmas music usually gets people in the spirit to decorate and bake goodies. It does me, anyway. Then you have more time to enjoy it while others are bustling around at the last minute.”

Fa la la la la

In 1920, a store owner in New Mexico asked the question: “If Christmas came tomorrow, would you be ready?” It was clearly a challenge to the American people. And the American people responded, decorating their homes, baking their pies and getting their shopping done sometimes while summer leaves were still on the trees.

Some of them did, anyway. There is amble evidence that the people of that time engaged in the same arguments we’re having here today.

“Uneasiness over November shopping and outright ire over September and October sales are now some of America’s oldest yuletide traditions,” opines writer Paul Collins in an article at Slate.com. “Like the annual unwrapping of a fruitcake or an ugly sweater, the idea that Christmas comes earlier every year is entirely predictable, bound by tradition — and yet somehow always surprising to us.” 

The question is whether this Christmas ambush in the stores, on the radio and strung along the front of your neighbor’s house a week before Thanksgiving will have the opposite effect by causing people to resent the holiday. Just think about how much easier things would be – on your psyche and on your wallet – if you were to eschew the mother of all holidays in protest.

“I love Christmas,” says Laurie Taylor of Dixfield, “but it’s too early. It’s stressful enough having to make sure I have enough money for bills, let alone Christmas presents. Having music playing now is just too much. Over a month of it would just be sickening and tiring.”

“I feel bombarded from every corner,” says Suze Blood. “Ads, music . . . Santa stalking me.”

Cheer up, Suze. At the start of the last week of November, most area stores were not yet cranking the Christmas tunes. No “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” no “Walking in Women’s Underwear,” no — God help us — Chipmunks Christmas songs, although there were reports that TJ Maxx had succumbed to the pressure.

We all know it’s coming, though. By the time this story hits the news racks, Santa will be standing outside a dozen stores (how does he do that, anyway?) ringing his bell. The voices of Bing Crosby, Burl Ives and Johnny Mathis will fill your head like the voice of your conscience telling you to have yourself a merry little Christmas. If you happen to work in one of those stores, peace be with you. You’ll hear so much Christmas music, it will likely be ringing in your ears until the Fourth of July.

“As a retail worker, I’d prefer to enjoy Thanksgiving and be thankful for what I have with family,” says Bonnie Lachance of Lewiston. “To me, Xmas is forced down our throats way too early and causes a lot of stress and anxiety on those who are just struggling to get by. We have lost the real meaning of Christmas over the years. It’s more than the presents, lights, etc.”

Yes, it is, but it sure looks like the holiday will continue to be about shopping and wrapping, cooking and cleaning, and fighting with strangers over parking spots. Many of us sputter about it, but by the time the big day draws near we’ll get the spirit. And with that in mind, from my lips to your ears, merry Christmas, baby. You sure do treat me nice.

LaFlammes’s top 10 most reviled Christmas songs

* “Here Comes Santa Clause,” the one by Gene Autry. The one where he repeats this line 6,000 times before moving on to sing other lyrics. This one will cause you to smash your radio with a hammer.

* “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Bono doing what Bono does: trying to make us all feel guilty because we have so much while others have so little. It’s a good point to be made. Too bad it’s a terrible, terrible song, which all radio stations are required to play 100 times a day.

* “Feliz Navidad,” from Jose Feliciano, the same dude who mangled “Light my Fire” back in the ’70s. Again, it’s about repetition. This song might be tolerable if you only had to listen to the main lyric, say, a dozen times, instead of 400. I just smashed my radio in anticipation of this horror.

* “Wonderful Christmastime,” by Paul McCartney. This is the worst song in the history of music. In the history of Christmas, for that matter. In the history of vocal cords in humans. Every great thing McCartney did with the Beatles is completely undone by this holiday wreck of a song.

* “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” Elmo & Patsy. This one was actually quite entertaining and catchy the first two dozen times I heard it. After that? I kind of want to run over myself, if that’s possible.

* “Carol of the Bells” by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It’s got a big sound that makes me feel like I’m living in a Christmas-themed adventure movie being chased by . . . I don’t know. Zombie Santa or something. I don’t care for it.

* “Last Christmas,” by Wham!. Wham! is right. I just kicked the stuffing out of my car stereo again. I go through a lot of them this time of year.

* “Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk for Christmas,” by John Denver. You know what? That’s so morbid it actually rises to the level of unique. I’ll give this one a pass for now.

* “The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth,” Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Bowie ruins this one with that sappy falsetto. I would rather chew and digest tinsel than listen to this song again.

* “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” by Bob & Dog McKenzie. Hilarious when you’re 13 years old and drunk on egg nog. It stops being funny around the sixth day of Christmas until you just want to pummel these two hosers with a toque. 

Look here for a list of Christmas songs I actually like, and the twisted reasons why.

The history of Christmas music – blame the pagans

From whychristmas.com:

“Carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago, but these were not Christmas carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the winter solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles. (The word ‘carol’ originally meant to dance to something). The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around the 22nd of December. . . . Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived.

“Early Christians took over the pagan solstice celebrations for Christmas and gave people Christian songs to sing instead of pagan ones. In AD 129, a Roman bishop said that a song called “Angel’s Hymn” should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Another famous early Christmas hymn was written in 760 AD by Comas of Jerusalem for the Greek Orthodox Church. Soon after this, many composers all over Europe started to write ‘Christmas carols’. However, not many people liked them, as they were all written and sung in Latin, a language that (most) people couldn’t understand. By the time of the (later) Middles Ages (the 1200s), most people had lost interest in celebrating Christmas altogether.

“This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started his nativity plays in Italy. The people in the plays sang songs or ‘canticles’ that told the story during the plays. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin, but normally they were all in a language that the people watching the play could understand and join in. The new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany and other European countries.”

Read more at: whychristmas.com