Do you hear what I hear?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2017 (3154 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you look closely, you’ll see it in the eyes of most of the people you meet at this festive time of year.

It’s that tiny glint of madness, a glimmer of barely suppressed rage that, if allowed to boil over, will push them to unspeakable acts of evil.

I’m not a clinical psychologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s just what happens when every (bad word) shopping centre in the land has been playing Christmas carols on a continual loop since before Halloween, driving innocent holiday shoppers musically mad.

I don’t want to come off as Scrooge-like, but I think my feelings of fear at this time of year are best summed up by the following original poem I just made up:

“Twas the night before Christmas/And all through the mall/They were playing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer/Over and over and over!”

OK, I realize that last line, technically speaking, does not rhyme, but I suspect you still get the thrust of my festive gist, so to speak.

Like most normal people, I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for traditional holiday tunes, but when you are forced to listen to Frosty the Snowman — sample lyric: “Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump/Look at Frosty go/Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump/Over the hills of snow” — for the 500th time while staggering around a shopping centre looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer, you are no longer responsible for something you might do to that obnoxious clerk in the fragrance department, if you catch my legal drift.

You would think our lawmakers, instead of blathering on about regulating things like Uber, would step up to the festive plate and spell out strict rules governing when malls are allowed to start playing Christmas carols, and how many times they are allowed to play any particular carol, especially The Chipmunk Song, wherein Alvin and the boys continually squeak: “Want a plane that loops the loop/Me, I want a hula hoop/We can hardly stand the wait/Please Christmas, don’t be late.”

The medically important point I am making today — a mere 29 shopping days before Christmas — is that constant exposure to festive chestnuts carries with it the potential for sudden violence in crowded shopping centres, including the desire to slash someone’s throat with your credit card because you have been forced to listen to The Little Drummer Boy — sample lyric: “Pa rum pum pum pum/rum pum pum pum” — one too many times, and can no longer understand why anyone would think it was acceptable to bang their (very bad word) drum in a room full of barnyard animals while a newborn was trying to get some shut-eye.

Maybe you think I am crazy for ranting about something as innocuous as beloved Christmas carols. Well, perhaps you will be laughing out of the other side of your festive face when I tell you that prominent clinical psychologists are starting to have their doubts about exposing the human ear to a non-stop barrage of carols every holiday season.

For instance, clinical psychologist Linda Blair earlier this month told British reporters that Christmas songs can make us holiday shoppers feel “trapped,” and is not always helpful for our mental health.

“It’s a reminder that we have to buy presents, cater for people and organize celebrations,” she told several U.K. newspapers.

“Music goes right to our emotions immediately and it bypasses rationality… People working in the shops at Christmas have to tune out Christmas music because if they don’t, it really does stop you from being able to focus on anything else.”

Dr. Victoria Williamson, who conducts research on the psychology of music at Goldsmiths, University of London, recently told NBC News that hearing Christmas songs over and over again can lead to the “exposure effect,” wherein even if we’ve been enjoying a song for a period of time, listening to it on repeat takes away from the experience, and forces us to become tired of it.

While this can be a real problem for the mental health of shoppers, the ones whose ears and brains are really on the front lines are the poor folks who work in the malls during the holiday season.

I couldn’t find statistics to back me up, but I suspect there is a direct causal relationship between the number of times certain Christmas carols are played in malls and the number of clerks transformed into serial killers during the festive season.

One moment an innocent clerk is helping a customer select a gift of lingerie or a power tool, and the next moment they are either strangling that person with a giant piece of ribbon or are battering their brains out with an oversized novelty candy cane — all because they were forced to experience Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer — “When they found her Christmas morning/At the scene of the attack/There were hoofprints on her forehead/And incriminating Claus marks on her back” — assaulting their eardrums 12 times in a single shift.

And if some hapless clerk were driven to commit murder because they couldn’t stand listening to John Denver crooning Please, Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas), no court in the land would convict them.

Defence lawyer: “Your honour, my client choked a customer to death because his store was playing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus on a continual loop.”

Judge (tears in his eyes): “Hark, this man is INNOCENT! Now go and enjoy a silent night!”

In conclusion, I’d just like to say… “Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus…” Ha ha ha! OHMYGAWD! DROP THAT GIANT NOVELTY CANDY CANE!!!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca