Christmas Music, the Chipmunks, and Lines I Will Not Cross

For Alison, Tim, Rob, Katherine, Nicole, Megan and all my ED co-workers

I love traditional Christmas music and yes, Wham!’s Last Christmas qualifies. It’s been around long enough to earn its place and I will die on that hill.

That song makes me smile every time I hear it, mostly because it carries one of my favorite holiday memories. Years ago, my dear friend Alison and I made a simple bet. The stakes were low, just a cup of coffee, but the consequences were loud. From Thanksgiving Day through the first of the year, Last Christmas played nonstop in my office. Constantly. Relentlessly. Joyfully.

It became a soundtrack to the season, equal parts joke, endurance test, and tradition. It still makes me think of laughter, stubbornness, and the kind of friendships that turn ridiculous moments into something permanent. To anyone who wandered into that crossfire, I remain completely unapologetic. Some holiday traditions are sacred. This one just happened to be set to Wham!.

Now, all of that said, there are limits.

There are certain sounds that hard-wire themselves into your nervous system. A dentist’s drill. A smoke alarm with a dying battery. For me, the shrill, helium-soaked chorus of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing Christmas songs.

I despised them as a kid. Not in a dramatic, throw-the-record-out-the-window way, but in a deep, simmering irritation that settled somewhere behind my eyes. While everyone else seemed delighted by the novelty, I just felt assaulted.

What bothered me most wasn’t just the sound. It was the inevitability of it. You couldn’t escape them. They showed up on the radio, on TV specials, in department stores, and in classrooms where teachers wheeled in a TV on a cart and smiled like they were doing us a favor. There was always that moment when the first few notes hit and you knew, this was happening now.

I assumed this was one of those things you grow out of. That adulthood would soften the edges, add nostalgia, maybe even affection. That one day I’d hear those songs and think, ah yes, childhood.

That day has not come.

If anything, my feelings have clarified. I’ve made peace with the fact that the Chipmunks simply are not for me. Their Christmas songs feel less like music and more like an endurance test. A reminder that joy is subjective and some traditions survive not because they’re good, but because they’re loud and familiar.

Christmas doesn’t require universal approval. It’s a patchwork of comforts and irritations, of things we love deeply and things we tolerate politely. For some people, the Chipmunks are harmless fun, a soundtrack to tree trimming and childhood memories. For me, they remain an audio equivalent of tinsel in your mouth.

So no, my opinion hasn’t changed. I still find them annoying. Intensely. Almost impressively so.

While I’m already confessing my list of seasonal Festivus grievances, know dear reader that it does not end with Chipmunks. Christmas Shoes (I can not promote this song, so I will not link to it ) remains, to this day, an emotional ambush disguised as a holiday song. I don’t need a soppy ballad trying to guilt me into tears while I’m standing under fluorescent lights, just trying to get through my errands. Christmas is already complicated. I don’t need manufactured tragedy layered on top of it.

Then there’s Christmastime in Washington. A season of gray slush, damp cold that seeps into your bones. Wind that cuts sideways between buildings. The call out of landmarks, places, and streets feel exhausted, not enchanted. Nothing sparkles. Nothing twinkles. It’s practical, heavy, and unromantic.

Still, this is the bargain of the season. We keep the songs that make us smile, tolerate the ones we can tune out, and quietly resent the rest.

The Christmas season will survive my objections.

It always does.

Merry Christmas to you and your families.

Wham!