Question Of The Week: When Should You Start Playing Holiday Music?

Holiday music brings out the quirks and extremes in many of us. Some love it but find it a sin to play before Thanksgiving. Some despise it and can't wait until the New Year so they don't have to hear it again, at least for another year. How about you?

Holiday music brings out the quirks and extremes in many of us. Some love it but find it a sin to play before Thanksgiving. Others despise it and can't wait until the New Year so they don't have to hear it again, at least for another year.

Here's how it worked for me this year: On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I popped open and listened to Silver and Gold, the new five-EP set of Sufjan Stevens holiday songs. (Yup, all five, which brings the total of Sufjan's Christmas songs in my library to 100. Now there's one extreme holiday music guy.) Then, on Saturday, I saw his fabulously fun concert, Surfjam Estabanopolis Christmas Spectacular Seasonal Affective Disorder Sing-a-long Sensation. (If you get a chance, see this tour. It includes a giant gameshow-style spinning wheel of song choices called "The Wheel of Christmas"). It felt like the right weekend to start my holiday music listening, and — like Thanksgiving dinner — by late Sunday, I'd had my fill.

With All Songs Considered, we typically put our holiday show up the week before Christmas. Show co-host Robin Hilton doesn't want to hear any of that stuff until Christmas Eve. He's also a bit adverse to the corny holiday tunes, something that fuels my fire.

So how about you? What's are your holiday music rules? Have you pulled out your Christmas with Colonel Sanders album yet?

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