Sunny Side Up
Yesterday I took a walk with my grandma. We admired fall leaves, pumpkin and scarecrow decorations, and light-up snowmen marooned on a grassy lawn. Light-up snowmen?? It’s not even Thanksgiving, for crying out loud! There’s NO SNOW!
The stranded snowmen reminded me of the concept of Kairos, a word that my English professor has been drilling into my mind lately. Alongside Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, Kairos is an early Greek idea that refers to timeliness. Nobody makes a sad speech at a wedding – the Kairos would be inappropriate. Nobody puts up snowmen décor before there’s snow in the forecast…oh wait.
This sparked a decision to research the most contentious topic of Christmas cheer: music. Every year, people are injured in struggles over controlling the radio, aux cord, Bluetooth, etc. as the never-ending fight goes on over Christmas music. How early is too early to listen? What is the proper Kairos for Santa Baby blasting in your room?
Myself a dedicated day-after-Thanksgiving listener, I decided to poll other students to get their opinions. Although the spectrum is broad for the Christmas-music-Kairos debate, I narrowed the poll down to four options. What camp do you fall into?
- November 1st
- AFTER THANKSGIVING!
- The week before Christmas
- Anytime
Among 21 DSU students polled, an astonishing majority voted for AFTER THANKSGIVING! A few people said November 1st, and two lonely representatives like to listen to Christmas music anytime they please. The debate sparked a *mostly* friendly conversation about which songs are the best, along with insults like “you grinch.”
To get closer to the North Pole, I also polled 13 friends from the frigid and desolate state of North Dakota. Unsurprisingly, the answer that won out was “Anytime.” You need extra cheer if you’re stuck in North Dakota. These students from NDSU turned violent over the question, saying things like “fight me.” I had to end the poll after this exchange:
John: “The music is violently overplayed during the season, horribly corny, and obnoxiously repetitive.”
Danielle: “So you and Christmas music have similar qualities.”
The feelings of these two people may have been less extreme about Christmas music if they hadn’t broken up quite so recently.
The most noticeable result was that, out of all students polled, nobody chose the “week before Christmas” option. Thus I draw the conclusion that it’s not really Christmas music, it’s Christmas spirit music. Music designed to help listeners anticipate Christmas (or begin to hate it, depending on how you feel about Mariah Carey). Therefore, there is no real answer to the debate of Christmas music Kairos. An NDSU student claimed that the music debate is pointless, and responded with this perplexing question: “Do hot dogs swim?” I’ll leave you to think on that while I go put up my Halloween decorations in preparation for next October.
