By Chris Cosci

People who work in retail stores deserve a lot of credit. They spend most of the day on their feet and frequently have to deal with impatient and angry customers. For some unlucky employees, I often wonder how they keep their sanity. Specifically, I am thinking of employees who work in departments near annoying novelty items that make noises or play songs. Almost every customer is compelled to press the button that activates the item for the millionth time in the last 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the store employee stands there with eyes closed and teeth grinding, resisting the urge to pounce on the customers when they say, "that's so funny, but I don't think I could stand having it in my house - it would drive me crazy."

With the holiday season upon us, these employees become subjected to another form of madness: all-day Christmas music. In addition to their usual nuisances, workers must endure hearing the same in-store Christmas music over and over, day in and day out, for an entire month. There's no escaping it. And now, thanks to the ever-growing trend of Christmas overexposure, this experience is being made available to us.

In the past, many radio stations offered all-Christmas music weekends or all-day Christmas music during the actual holiday itself. This year, beginning on Thanksgiving, some of the country's most popular radio stations abandoned their usual playlists and switched over to a 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week all-Christmas format. Want to listen to a few songs from some of your favorite artists? You better buy the albums and fire up your CD player, because they're not being played on the radio.

While some stations still offer temporary refuge from the constant barrage of Christmas songs, it's only a matter of time before you'll have no choice. I know, most radio stations could use a little change anyway from their typical, repetitive batch of songs. However, this is not a solution, it's a new problem altogether. Not only will they just go back to the same old songs after the holidays are over, but now they'll just be playing a typical, repetitive batch of Christmas songs.

The big issue here is that Christmas is not meant to be a 24-hour event for an entire month. Don't get me wrong - I love Christmas. It is definitely one of my favorite holidays. However, when it becomes a ubiquitous presence for such an extended period of time, it starts to drift into overkill territory. For me, it's better to expose yourself to small, healthy doses of Christmas before submerging yourself in a bottomless vat of it. Unfortunately, this keeps getting harder and harder.

Every year, the decorations become more elaborate, the gifts increase in quantity and the number of Christmas specials on television grows exponentially. Everywhere you turn, you see mistletoe, Santa Claus and, in some places where they haven't forgotten what Christmas is really about, nativity scenes. The message is delivered to us loud and clear: you will get into the holiday spirit - and you'll do it now!

With radio stations starting to play in to the madness, one has to wonder what the next step will be. Soon, companies will start requiring all their employees to wear red and green throughout the holiday season. For the month of December, all streets in the country will be re-named something like Santa Claus Lane or Rudolph Road. And movie studios will no longer release their usual batch of Oscar hopefuls. Instead, theaters will only show "Miracle on 34th Street," "A Christmas Story" and "It's a Wonderful Life."

Sure, this may all seem a little extreme. Then again, I'm sure there are people who never expected radio stations to give up their regular programming for an entire month just to play Christmas songs. Christmas is no longer just a holiday - it's a force to be reckoned with. And if that dominating presence ever starts to drive you crazy, you can always turn to a store employee and say, "now I know how you feel."