This time every year, someone writes a blog post similar to this:

But I was a bit shocked to hear Christmas music over the store intercom.  A Christmas tune by Elvis came on the intercom as I was exploring the display of 2011 calendars, one of the things I need to get over the next two months.   I don’t know when Kmart started playing the Christmas music as I can’t remember exactly when I last entered the store, other than on Halloween eve.

Media outlets looking to stir up easy controversy ask online readers if playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving is wrong, and in some markets on slow news days (I’m looking at you, Buffalo), they do a story on it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDysxiNDZVA[/youtube]

Admittedly, I winced last night at commercials announcing that Toys R Us will open Thanksgiving night at 10, and that many stores and malls will be open for Black Friday shopping starting at midnight. But as someone who just finished writing about Christmas music, who has already interviewed Shelby Lynne about her great new Christmas album, Merry Christmas, and who has been getting Christmas mp3s in the mail, I’m pretty bulletproof to the stuff and don’t see a problem with it starting now. If Thanksgiving were somehow suffering from neglect, I might be more sympathetic, but that’s not the case. And if Christmas music were already inescapable, I might feel the anxiety, but even in the mall on Friday, we’re only an iPod full of our own favorites away from Frosty, Rudolph and the rest of their sinister, wintry ilk.

If there’s anything to grouse about here, it’s an economy that hopes to convince people who are already struggling and who are already carrying the burden of supporting the economy that they need to spend more and a greater percentage of their income to keep the country afloat. And, that a perfectly lovely holiday and its music are being used to coerce people into risking greater debt instead of addressing wage disparities between employees and employers. The differences between what they earn might make for good TV on a slow news day as well.