It’s coming.

Halloween and Thanskgiving decorations are things of the past,  the sales are getting more frantic, the advertising more sappy. There are rumours of snow squalls.

Yep, sorry buddies, time to buy your cheap-ass, chalky-chocolate advent calendar and bust out the plastic mistletoe. The holidays are BACK: bells are jingling, winter is wonderlanding, and everybody’s waiting for the man with the bag. (Ew.) Christmas is coming! (Ewwww.)

Although, to be honest, Christmas is still reasonably far away. You’ve got over a month to get in all the shopping, cooking, and pre-emptive stretchy pants buying you need before December 25th. But what’s comin’ atcha faster than Blitzen after a few too many glasses of dirty nog is Christmas tunes. You know the ones. We got your carols. We got your hymns. We got your young-female-popstar-discovers-meaning-of-Christmas-and-how-to-orgasm-at-the-same-time-sounds-like. We got your stand-by classics. And a lot of us have already got Christmas-song fatigue.

People hate Christmas music! Like, really hate. Like, liberal pinkos to Ford brothers and vice versa, hate. Which is confusing because some radio stations are about to switch to a 24/7 Xmas-only extravaganza, and the remaining will certainly be playing largely festive tracks. Stores, Starbuckses and workplaces will be busting out Bette Midler’s Cool Yule,  A Very She & Him Christmas, and Charo’s age-old classic: (Mamacita) ¿Donde esta Santa Claus?. Women and men the world over are arching their brows in pre-disdain and readying themselves for the first of many exasperated sighs as Christmas Shoes is played for the third time… that hour.

But I am not one of them. I don’t hate Christmas music! I don’t love it, sure, but I am fine with most of it and a big fan of some of its better incarnations. Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic is an all-year occasion on my iPod, for instance. I have walked down a New York street in June happily singing along in my head while Mariah croons about snow and babies at her door, or whatever. I readily bust out Nat King Cole on November walks in England for a pleasant, warm feeling of homesickness and a nice nod to the Ghost of Dinners Future. Is Christmas Shoes an emotionally exploitative, overwrought, over-produced total disaster of a song? Absolutely. But for every CS there is a Ru Paul’s Ho Ho Ho or Bing Crosby makin’ it work or Lady Gaga’s Christmastree (I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the tree is her vagina), and I think festive tunes come out on top.

Winter is hard work–it’s dark as hell, cold as some kind of reverse cold-hell where there’s no fire, extra weight starts making itself known and your coworkers become stressed out grumps possessed by the SADs. If you’re on board with the soundtrack to the next few weeks, you’re going to have it a lot easier than those sad souls endlessly scrolling through radio stations looking for something, anything, non-Yule related. GOOD LUCK FOLKS! If you need me, I’ll be over here whistling the sonic equivalent of a glass of spiced hot cider, feelin’ #blessed.