It's the most wonder full time...

Working in the music retail, you become painfully aware of the impending onslaught of holiday music with each passing day that brings you that much closer to the official "start of the shopping season." I usually get to choose what music we play in our store, selected from what the company provides, thereby having some freedom or even the power to create or enhance the general mood of the store. The music I prefer tends to be a mixture of alternative adult contemporary and mellow rock (not to be mistaken for easy listening, mind you) which includes but is not exclusive to: Michael Penn, Marie Taylor, The Perishers, Feist, Kings of Convenience, Ashton Allen, Thea Gilmore, Nicola Hitchcock, Ellie Lawson, the current Hootie (which is actually very well done, being relatively to new to the Blowfish but not all too unfamiliar, blending several styles that include rock and bluegrass), Ben Taylor, and of course some Coldplay. I'd play Demon Days if I could, to be honest.

But yesterday was the first day that we played Holiday music (Read: Christmas music, we don't have any Hannukah, Kwaanza, or Winter Solstice compilations for instore play) ALL DAY. We have enough holidays CDs to actually fill the majority of the day without replaying any of them. Truthfully, there are only so many interprettations of Sleigh Ride, O Holy Night, The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts roasting..." oh, you go ahead and roast it.), 12 Days of Christmas, Here Comes Santa Claus, Silent Night, We Three Kings, among so many others that various can do before they start drawing muddy water from the well of creativity. (I haven't actually used a well before, so if the water does not in fact become muddy the closer it gets to being empty, then my apologies.)

The Barenaked Ladies Holiday album is actually more inclusive than some of the others and has a little more variety in style from traditional rock to plain silliness (their take on the Dreidel song brings a smile, right alongside Jingle Bells). Surprisingly, I enjoyed Linda Eder and Jane Monheit, with which I was exercising a certain level of critical skepticism. Linda can sing very high.

However unbearable the thought of "getting" to listen to holiday music non stop for the next 7 weeks may be, that holiday spirit people are always talking about permeated throughout the store, taking many shapes from a customer's delight in getting gift shopping done early to discussions with a coworker concerning the achievement of enlightment over the materialistic desires that rule each person's life or desire itself as an all-consuming universal entity expressing itself through life therefore providing that life a purpose though not necessarily meaning. Yes, there is something in the air, and it's not just smog and cigarette smoke.

Annita and I will be making our first Thanksgiving dinner together. Our menu will include but is not limited to turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied yams, devilled-eggs, and potato bread. We will be playing holiday music, watching some sort of movie associated with the holidays in one way or another (I will be pushing the Fellowship of the Ring), and if we're lucky we might even catch the Macy's TG Day parade and see ol' big red tooling down the street with his sparkling ceramic deer.

The holidays are almost here. Yay. No really, yay. : )