For many, Christmas music is a wonderful thing! It transports them to their childhood, making Christmas cookies with Grandma, or decking the halls with poison ivy. What? To each their own.
Seems like the biggest debate this season is whether clinical psychologist Linda Blair is right in her declaration that playing Christmas music on repeat is detrimental to your health. But, like any good game of telephone, there have been a few facts lost along the way. Blair’s comment to Sky News was about employees working in an environment in which they were forced to listen to Christmas music on masse and on repeat for weeks on end. Other mental health professionals agree that employees could overdose on the Christmas stuff, but ultimately declare it could go either way. If you have happy memories and feelings associated with Christmas music, you might find your 6+ weeks of listening to Mariah tell you all she wants for Christmas simply wonderful. If you don’t have the greatest memories of Christmas, the experience could be dreadful.
The debate on when to start playing Christmas music in stores does, however, include the impact it has on the customer. The tunes get cranked in November to get customers in the frame of mind that now is the time to shop for gifts. It’s a dicey game, however. Yes, a rendition of Frosty the Snowman can cue tender feelings of family and friends, or it can trigger anxiety about 
all of the things customers and employees have to achieve in order to level-up this Christmas: get cards, write in cards, mail cards, get gifts, figure out who will be where on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, spend time with family who suck the fun out of things, and then there’s all that money customers are expected to spend.
But how do you decide what “too early” and “too often” even mean? The truth is that retail relies on Christmas sales in order to stay in business at all, so you want to let shoppers know you’ve got what they’re looking for. Some stores have an internal policy on when to start playing Christmas music, oftentimes based on customer feedback. In Canada it’s likely you’ll find most wait until after Remembrance Day. And still others will introduce Christmas music gradually, starting with 1 song integrated into the usual playlist in early November moving on to 50% Christmas tunes by late November and full on Christmas music for the month of December. And, still others choose not to play any Christmas music whatsoever.
You can’t please everyone, but you can at least try. We recommend you talk to your staff and find out both how they feel about the playlist, whether specific songs are particularly painful for them, and what feedback they get from customers and use these metrics to devise a healthy Christmas season marketing strategy.
