I love blogging - I really do. But sometimes, it just isn't enough to pay the bills. And by sometimes, I mean all the time. So, in order to make a little extra cash, I took a retail job. I mostly stock shelves, nothing big. My boss is cool, and so are my co-workers. So, everything was fine until 96.1 Joy FM started playing Christmas music, and I was subjected to it for 20 hours over a three-day span this week. 20 freaking hours of Christmas music. I appear before you a hollow shell of the man I used to be.

It's weird that "Christmas" music is considered a singular genre of music. Really, it's several genres centered around a singular theme. And even that theme takes on multiple iterations. There are Christmas songs of all modes, tackling many different aspects of the holiday. There's the harmless fun of "Jingle Bell Rock," and "Rockin Around The Christmas Tree," to the Biblical matters of "The Little Drummer Boy," to the absolute fucking horror show that is "The Christmas Shoes." I won't get into that one, because Patton Oswalt already said everything that needs to be said. But man, I heard that shit 4 fucking times this week!

One big thing I've learned about Christmas music is that redundancy is a total non-issue. Who cares if your version of "Winter Wonderland" is completely identical to every other version out there? Keep fuckin' that chicken! Same goes for "Let It Snow" and "Frosty the Snowman." We absolutely, unequivocally NEED 549,465,123 versions of all these songs! AMERICA! FOX NEWS! APPLE PIE!

But hey, I'm not a total Grinch about this shit. I do have a soft spot for Wham's enormous hit "Last Christmas."  For all of George Michael's many, many problems that have been discussed many, many times, and do not need to be regurgitated here, the dude can write a damn good pop song. Which is why it kills me that the radio insists on playing the solo Ashley Tisdale cover of the song rather than the fantastic original. There was already a perfectly good version of this song. Why did this soulless dreck need to exist? Oh right, the shareholders. never mind.

But hey, I got through it. My Wednesday shift ended, and I celebrated  a magical Christmas with my family. Wait, that was only Thanksgiving? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO