Now that we are past Halloween and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching us, this time of year poses a divisive question: When is the right time to start listening to Christmas music? Some people have a rule that it is too early until after Thanksgiving. For me, I have already started listening to Christmas music through the Spotify app. My reasoning for this is there no specific songs that are exclusively for Thanksgiving that I know of. There are a lot of songs about appreciation and giving thanks which is what Thanksgiving is about, so if you wanted to be technical these could count as "Thanksgiving" songs. There are also no Thanksgiving based movies.
Movies and music go hand and hand, if you watch Christmas movies before Thanksgiving then you can't make a rule about no Christmas music before Thanksgiving. This year, Thanksgiving falls on the 22nd of November so there isn't much more of a wait. In addition, it is the shortest amount of time possible (in terms of days) between Halloween and Thanksgiving (which always falls on the 4th Thursday in November).
Based on my research, the favorite option for the "right time" to start listening to Christmas music is after Thanksgiving. Another popular opinion is to wait all the way until the beginning of December. Some states begin the tradition earlier than others. These 10 states are: Massachusetts, Alaska, Iowa, Delaware, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Utah, and West Virginia. This data was collected from "The Daring Kitchen", which analyzed more than 60,000 geotagged tweets about Christmas music. This data isn't completely accurate, it leaves out the population that doesn't use twitter or the people who didn't actively tweet about it early, maybe to not be "that person" who is listening to Yuletide carols before Halloween.
An argument can be made that the Christmas music that has came out since 2000 is so great and adds more options to listen to which can be part of the reason why people choose to listen to Christmas music earlier in the season. However, this is a misconception, with the exception of a few recent hits that have remained popular for multiple years, it is the true Christmas classics that keep the spirit alive, considering that some of these tunes are repackaged by newer artists.
Sophomore Chris Boswell states "The reason why I don't like Christmas music before Thanksgiving is because we are totally missing out on a holiday. Thanksgiving is an important holiday when we should give thanks."
While he has a point that Thanksgiving should not be overlooked, I believe that both holidays can be celebrated together as they make up the holiday season. Both of these holidays embody being grateful and cherishing spending time with the people who you are the closest to. It is foolish to think we should limit Christmas music to only one month a year.