I’ll cut to the chase…I waited until the day after Halloween to start playing Christmas music.

In years past, my family has gone ballistic on me if I play any Christmas music before Thanksgiving day (last Thursday in November, here in the U.S.). That’s just too late for me to start playing the thousands of worthy and amazing Christmas music that’s out there. More importantly, it doesn’t give me enough time to get my mind right for the holiday itself.

You see, Christmas music to me indicates a season of giving, love, and family time. As our family has scattered across the country, it’s become more and more important to me that we’re able to get together. I really cherish the hubbub in our kitchen and around our table during the holidays. To outsiders it might seem like unfettered chaos, with dozens of interlinked conversations, laughter, people moving around, and all sorts of human interaction. To me, it’s the best time of the year.

My kids are amazingly smart and each possesses an amazing sense of humor. From the slapstick to the driest humor, we have it all. Their appetites for food are also legendary, so I get the grand opportunity to not only make all sorts of food, but I get to do it in an environment of fun and laughter.

But getting back to my obsession with Christmas music…my Mom used to play music in our house all the time. Those were the days of 33 1/3 vinyl records, played on a then state-of-the-art stereophonic record player. We had a spindle that would allow for ten (yup, a whole ten) vinyl records to be stacked on top of each other and played in sequence. When the stack was done playing and the last record had quite spinning, it was my job to flip the stack and restart the sequence. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, music was always playing.

During Christmas, we brought out (and dusted off) all the Holiday records and played them non-stop through the season. Mom was pretty adamant about waiting until Thanksgiving day to play any Christmas records though. I would awake in the wee hours of the morning to her preparing the extended family’s Thanksgiving meal with the joyful first sounds of the Christmas holiday mixed in. Later in the morning we would watch the Thanksgiving parades, switching between the four Chicago VHF stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, and WGN) to see the best of each parade. It was simply tradition. Later in the day, all my cousins would arrive and we would have a big family meal.

And the sounds and smells of the holidays were ingrained in me from an early age. Christmas music was intricately linked to the memories of relatives long past. It provides a framework for my memories, and a way for me to remember the stories that I want to share with my kids (and now grandkids).

Yet as the years have rolled by, the number of memories that I want to preserve have increased. I’ve tried to record them in written words, in oratory, and even in photographs. But nothing has quite captured the true essence for me as much as my love for the holiday music.

So each year I’ve spent some time carefully crafting a musical playlist for my iPod. I’ve avoided listening to the songs prior to Halloween, but I’ve adjusted and tweaked the playlist to no end. Last year my playlist was thousands of songs long, with nary a repeat of artist/song in the mix. I started the iPod playing on our kitchen player and let it go until it was finished, then played it again. I think the entire playlist played through three times last year. Needless to say, I have a lot of Christmas music that I’ve collected.

This year, I managed to wait until the morning of November 1st to play my first Christmas song. Honestly, I was ready to switch from Pandora’s Toddler Radio and Garth Brooks stations about two weeks prior, but I held fast. I decided that I would try to craft a Christmas station on Pandora, so I started with Michael Bublé’s Holiday album and go from there. Over the past week I’ve given a thumbs up to a lot of songs, and thumbs down to just a few. I’ll admit that my current favorite song right now is All I Want for Christmas. I love the Mariah Carey version, but also have quite an affinity to the version from Love Actually.

Yet the most amazing thing happened this year, that gives me more hope than anything. As the family arrived home from work and school, there was no complaining. There were no snotty comments. There were no groans about too much Christmas music or that the music had started too early. In fact, I caught several family members singing along that first night. And for several nights after.

Sure, we had some griping over Facebook by the out-of-town kids when they heard that we were streaming Christmas music. At dinner a few nights ago the discussion drifted to the topic of our streaming music, and my younger son complained a bit…but then I heard him singing along later that very night. I didn’t call him on it, I just smiled and hummed the tune.

I think after all these years of exposure I’m starting to pass on one of the most important traditions of my youth. It’s taken years, but I’ve finally worn my family members down enough that they appear to actually be enjoying Christmas music.

The important point to me is that this means we’ll have more of the Christmas spirit for a longer period this year…and hopefully in future years.

So if you see me in my van and I’m singing (usually like an idiot) to something between Halloween and early January, trust that it’s Christmas music. Feel free to join in, I’m always up for a duet!

Make it a great day (and Merry Christmas)!