Playing Christmas Music Early May Be Bad for Your Health, so Stop or You're Fired

Elf
Elf | New Line Cinema
Elf | New Line Cinema

Every time you play "Jingle Bell Rock" before December 1, an innocent elf drops dead in the North Pole. This is a fact. 

Still, there seems to be a massive, utterly crude, elf-hating sector of the population jonesing to blast Christmas tunes (or worse, Michael Bublé covers of Christmas tunes) come Halloween. Is it a protest against the lack of Thanksgiving singles in the world at large? Shall we blame Tim Burton for confusing the two holidays in The Nightmare Before Christmas? Are our first winter fevers only cured by the sweet sounds of Mariah Carey crooning "All I Want for Christmas"?

Well, as an act of elf-advocacy and also personal preservation, regardless of the origins, we must inform you that you are no longer permitted to play Christmas music until you're good and recovered from your Thanksgiving food coma. New research says that preemptive Christmas music may actually be bad for our health. 

According to clinical psychologist Linda Blair, dispensing holiday cheer too early in the season is likely to trigger anxiety.

"[Holiday music] might make us feel that we're trapped” she says. "It's a reminder that we have to buy presents, cater for people, organize celebrations." All that over-eager Michael Bublé is setting you up for the stress that comes along with wrapping presents and listening to your Aunt Judy wax poetic about her hairdresser -- who is single, by the way, and very handsome -- well before you actually need to manage your holiday affairs. 

And beyond the personal blows, our addiction to yule tide tracks serves retailers, who make a small fortune off of our holiday anxiety, blasting "Jingle Bells" on loop starting November 1. 

“Some people will react to that [stress] by making impulse purchases, which the retailer likes," Blair explains. "Others might just walk out of the shop. It's a risk."

A recent Tampa Bay Times report took a look into big-budget department stores taking advantage of our year-round hankering for carols, declaring Best Buy the worst offender, where Christmas music starts looping a full two months before the actual holiday arrives. Sears and Kmart are no better, hanging mistletoe and kicking off their jolly jams at the start of November.

So yeah, these people are taking our money in exchange for nauseating pine-scented candles, but they could also be chipping away at our mental well-being. We are simply not meant to play "Here Comes Santa Claus" until Santa is actually coming. It's only fair. 

In light of this new development, we'd like to propose a referendum: Christmas music cannot and will not grace the public sphere until we've all returned from our respective Black Friday massacres. Do it for the elves. Do it for your Aunt Judy. Do it to spite Michael Bublé. But most importantly, do it for yourself. 

We will also be accepting demos for Thanksgiving albums ASAP. Please inquire within.  

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Eliza Dumais is a news writer at Thrillist who will only be listening to Christmas songs by Justin Bieber this holiday season. Follow her on Twitter for proof.