Now that Thanksgiving is past and December is approaching, the intrusion of our soundwaves known as Christmas music is here. All of the grocery stores are playing variations of “Santa Baby” and “All I Want for Christmas.” All of this insanity made me wonder, for how many generations have poor souls had to endure the hellish agony of grocery shopping in December? How long have we had to endure a lack of music choice? How long has Christmas music prevailed?

Christmas actually began as a weird pagan holiday in which Roman communities would force someone in their community to overeat and other bodily pleasures. Then on December 25th they would murder them and claim they were defeating evil by doing so. So then Christians wanted to convert these pagans and decided to let them keep their party by celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th. Nothing shows you love Jesus like murdering some innocent citizen. But hey, at least they converted the pagans!

The first Christmas songs, then, were actually pagan. It wasn’t until the 13th century that what we know as Christmas Carols came about. These were more or less celebrated throughout Europe and the Christian world (though at one point Protestants in England banned Christmas Carols because they were pagan). Christmas itself wasn’t a federal holiday in the United States until 1870 because partying wasn’t for good christians.

The barrage of Christmas pop music didn’t start until the mid 1900s. “Santa Baby” came out in 1953, “White Christmas” came out in 1954, “Jingle Bell Rock” followed in 1957, and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” came in 1960. It’s been over sixty years, and still we can’t get rid of these old songs.

Now excuse me as I listen to my St. Patrick’s Day playlist.