A Pox on Premature Christmas Music*

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Either I haven't been out and about as much or things aren't as bad this year as the past few, but that doesn't change the fact that many have already started the Christmas season (for a while now, in some cases). I hate this. Not just as an annoyance (though so much Christmas for so long does get annoying), but based on some strongly held principles.

First, Christmas is not the next holiday, not until the very end of November. In all this mad rush to make ourselves feel good with that magical spirit of the season, Thanksgiving seems to get pushed aside. Thanksgiving is too important to be overlooked and minimized. In these times in our country it is easy to take the constancy of food for granted--it's everywhere, all the time, regardless of time or season, and almost none of us have to do without. The concept of harvest is a distant one. But for most places and times in history, harvest is one of, if not the most, central events of the calendar. Sure, we still have fall festivals out of tradition, but we've lost the idea that we're celebrating our ability to survive another year. I think you would be hard pressed to find a culture today that doesn't have some form of a harvest festival. In our culture, that festival is Thanksgiving, and I would guess it is the most universal and inclusive holiday we have. So I refuse to even think of Christmas until after I've given Thanksgiving its full due.

Second, Christmas is magical because it only happens once a year. It is special because it's rare. If we stretch that out over an entire quarter of the calendar, not so much. By celebrating Christmas too early, too much, and too long, we actually minimize it. You can't crescendo to something awesome if you don't start small and delay the gratification. Otherwise it's ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME AND NOTHING IS ABLE TO STAND OUT AS EMPHASIZED. Christmas needs to remain a short season or it will lose all meaning.

And speaking of delayed gratification, something I was reading just this morning indicates it's not only good for Christmas, but for all of us in general:

In this and many similar studies, Mischel followed the children into adulthood. He discovered the ability to delay gratification had a more profound effect than many had originally predicted. Notwithstanding the fact that the researchers had watched the kids for only a few minutes, what they learned from the experiment was enormously telling. Children who had been able to wait for that second marshmallow matured into adults who were seen as more socially competent, self-assertive, dependable, and capable of dealing with frustrations; and the scored an average of 210 points higher on their SATs than people who gulped down the one marshmallow. The predictive power was truly remarkable.

Companion studies conducted over the next decade with people of varying ages (including adults) confirmed that individuals who exercise self-control achieve better outcomes than people who don't. For example, if high schoolers are good at self-control, they experience fewer eating and drinking problems. University students with more self-control earn better grades, and married and working people have more fulfilling relationships and better careers. And as you might suspect, people who demonstrate low levels of self-control show higher levels of aggression, delinquency, health problems, and so forth.

The rest of the chapter explains that the self-control to delay gratification is not an inborn trait, but something that can be learned, and offers strategies for doing so. When we refuse to delay the gratification of the Christmas season, we are only hurting ourselves.

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*And decorations and sales and etc.

**And all this started with the thought I wanted to find a way to share this song . . .