It might surprise many of you to find out that I love the Christmas season. Although I am by no means a religious person, I think the emphasis on generosity and spending time with family and close friends, which comes with the holiday, is almost universal, whether your personal beliefs lean toward the sacred or the secular. Of course, massive amounts of food and a little spiked eggnog doesn’t hurt the situation, either.

There is one Christmas tradition I feel the world could do without, however: Christmas music. With its sugary-sweet melodies and insipid lyrical content, this music has long been the bane of my holiday existence. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with uplifting music, but seriously, this stuff is the equivalent of an audial toothache.

It might not be so bad if you only had to put up with it for a few days in December, but thanks to the wonders of consumerism, the Christmas season is big business. Television, radio and just about any establishment you might happen to venture into looking for that perfect gift or Christmas dinner contribution are going to use this music to remind you what time of year it is – starting two months in advance.

It all starts before anyone has thought about putting up a tree, before anyone has carved the Thanksgiving turkey, let alone thought about buying all the goodies for Christmas dinner. The minute Halloween is over, stores are filling their racks with stockings and lights and pumping the same 12 Christmas songs through the PA system over and over again.

Unfortunately, I had some firsthand experience with this diabolical form of torture when I first came to Iowa State, and started working for a grocery store chain that shall remain nameless. Suffice to say, this company found it necessary to subject its employees to a loop of about a dozen Christmas tunes from October to New Year’s Eve. The same songs over and over again every single time you worked.

I have a theory that the tape was embedded with subliminal messages encouraging customers to buy extra groceries while they shopped, but that unfortunately can’t be confirmed. Needless to say, by the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, I would’ve rather been hit by the Polar Express than have to listen to f—ing “Jingle Bell Rock” one more time. And to think people wonder why the suicide rate is so high around the holidays.

It’s bad enough that we have to put up with the supposed “classics” of the Christmas genre, but what makes the whole thing worse is that modern artists, particularly those in the pop music realm, feel the need to commit further Yuletide atrocities.

It’s bad enough that we already have multiple versions of the likes of “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Let it Snow” floating around out there, should we really have to put up with talentless hacks like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson making traditional Christmas tunes more agonizing to listen to?

If there was any justice in this world, Santa Claus wouldn’t just fill these artists’ (and I use that term very loosely) stockings with coal, but their entire mansions, preferably while they are sleeping inside.

I know a lot of people love this stuff and it helps them get into the “Christmas spirit,” but come on, is the unrelenting two-month-long candy cane and reindeer bombardment really necessary?

Now, I’m not saying everyone should be cranking Slayer and Megadeth while they’re wrapping those XBox 360s, but it would certainly help ease my pain if we could all hold off from jumping the gun.

– Joshua Haun is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines. He is an assistant Pulse editor and will probably be getting coal in his stocking.