So, as if over twenty-four hours of Christmas music was not enough for Christmas listening enjoyment, XM now has all of their Christmas stations going in full effect. They have all the sub-genres covered from your traditional carols to the novelty to the normal everyday Christmas music from artists like Mannheim Steamroller, Kenny G, and Mariah Carey. It’s nice to have choices, choices are good, it’s like an auditory 31 Flavors.

The Book will be finished this week, we are so close. The excitement is building, we’re trying to figure out how to celebrate. To me a celebration seems premature, even if it is well deserved, it’s still premature. Technically, I don’t have a book yet, I have a manuscript that really, really hopes to grow up and become a book. I’m guessing that the road to bookdom, yes I just made that word up, may be arduous. But it does speak to some accomplishment and for that I should be happy. So maybe we’ll go grab a slice at The Costco, celebrate small, because even the small accomplishments deserve to be celebrated.

My wife and family think I’m crazy. I’ll admit it, I started listening to Christmas music back towards the end of September, just when the weather was starting to get slightly cooler.

Now, before you throw stones, let me explain. I don’t listen to only Christmas music. Right now Christmas music makes up about 15% of my total daily musical intake of about 6-8 hours, so is it really all that much?

I have however, purchased 3 Christmas albums in the past couple weeks and acquired another as way of a gift. And I have my eyes set on a couple more before the season goes into full effect. I used to start the Christmas music playing later, first it was November 1, then last year it moved to October 15. This year I decided to chuck it all and just go for it in September.

You see, it’s technology that has made all this enjoyment of holiday tunes and merry jingles possible. I have my entire music collection housed on a nice little external USB drive that I can take with me anywhere. Gone are the days of having to sift and sort through CD towers and boxes to find my Christmas music from the year before. If I had to do that I wouldn’t listen to it until November maybe even December. However, now I can quite easily cue up “White Christmas” by simply going to my smart Christmas playlist in iTunes. I could do it in June if I wanted, I’m not that crazy though.

In fact, it’s really iTunes fault that I find myself listening to Christmas music when it’s in the mid-to-upper nineties outside. Because of iTunes, I can now see just how much Christmas music I have in my collection. And since I acquire more albums each year, I only serve to add to my collection and my anxious need to listen to all of it in the few months sanely alloted for Christmas musical enjoyment.

Currently I have 24 hours of Christmas music, consisting of 437 songs taking up 1.69GB. It’s not a record, I know. But, it’s still a lot of music to go through and since I’m not one for bingeing, except at holiday meals when my mom’s oyster stuffing is involved, I’m going through it in moderation. It just so happens that my moderate musical enjoyment started in September. Now, if the weather ever cools down maybe I can work more of it into my daily rotation.