Synonym for Torture = Christmas Music

November is here, which means that Thanksgiving is almost here, which means that Christmas is in that petri dish at our major retailers and is currently growing like the Cloverfield Monster (or Godzilla, in case you didn't catch Cloverfield) into what will be a full grown monster. Think about it, nobody panics when the monster is small. It's fun, it's cute, it can be ignored. When it gets big though, you'll see the panic. You go about your normal day, enjoying November to it's fullest glory until that inevitable day of pandemonium...Black Friday. They call it Black Friday because people act like blindfolded 12 year old children hopped up on Mountain Dew and Pixie Sticks. The blindfold implies darkness...black...darkness...are you following me yet?

So where were we? Christmas. Yes, Christmas. Just you wait, you can ignore that monster until December gets here. But at that point this monster gets harder and harder to fight. The panic level goes up, up, up. Don't even think of waiting until the week of to start shopping, because at that point the monster is huge, out of control, and the city has turned to havoc induced frenziness. I made that last word up for dramatic effect.

So why title this blog about the torture that is Christmas music? The reason is that it plays everywhere you go 24/7. Chic-Fil-A is notorious for this, which is why I won't go there during the holidays. I wouldn't create a playlist of 50 or so songs and distribute them to every major restaurant and retailer and ask them to put it on repeat for 1 month, but for some reason this idea is OK during the Holidays.

Hear me out...there is a point to this.

I don't hate Christmas music, I just am quite picky about my Christmas music. I made some friends a Christmas Mix CD last year and quite honestly, it's really good. I mean just ask Darrell. It's good. Especially Relient K's rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas". They make a great point when singing the self-written/inserted chorus line discussing the weirdness of these presents. They round out said chorus by saying "...but I can bet those are terrible gifts today".

That's hilarious.

So this Christmas I'll try not to get grumpy. I'll try not to feed, ignore, or even complain anymore about the X-Mas Beast. This year we plan on enjoying a little Secret Santa to cut down on Christmas spending. We plan on investing our time and effort into one present for one person. It's fun and easy. Sure, we'll spend on our immediate family as well, because let's face it, our grandparents always need new pictures of us, my mom always needs some sort of house decorating thing, my sister needs money.

And yes, my dad will never avoid getting socks.

see you next week.