Not again. You walk into the mall, ready to get traditional autumnal decorations or some nice fall-leaf colored clothes, but instead of finding the trappings of the actual season you are in, you are bombarded by the smells, sights and sounds of Christmas. Mariah Carey is back with her infinitely catchy Christmas tunes but honestly, you still want to celebrate fall before winter begins to roll around.
For many people, this music may trigger feelings of nostalgia and happiness, but for others, it may cause unnecessary stress for a busy season they just aren’t ready for. Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist in the UK, says that playing Christmas music early doesn’t elicit these happy feelings in everyone. In a Sky News interview in 2017, she said that Christmas music “might make us feel that we’re trapped — it’s a reminder that we have to buy presents, cater for people, organize celebrations.”
The music may also cause us to impulse buy because of this pressure. According to a study performed by Washington State University in 2005, when the right combination of music and scents are combined (Christmas-y ones in particular), it caused people to buy more and spend more time in shops with these stimuli. Do we really want to give stores such easy ways into our mind?
Many people find comfort in this music, however. Listening to Christmas music early, particularly in this season, is becoming more popular because it alleviates some of our day-to-day stress. Nostalgia has a hold on us when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable and scary place. This is why we need to stay away from nostalgia. It can become a crutch on which we begin to ignore our problems, and now more than ever we need to face our problems head-on.
Halloween may have come and passed, but the Christmas music needs to stay away until its season has come. Maybe after Thanksgiving we can all jam to Mariah Carey and forget some of our troubles.
