Why You Love (Or Hate) Christmas Music

“Deck the halls with shut up.” —Some people

Whether you like it or not, Christmas music is streaming out of speakers everywhere you go.

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While some people embrace the relentless cheer, you might be a little tired of Rudolph’s nasal issues.

Repeated listening tends to form an inverted U-shaped curve over time.

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At first, you like it.

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Listening to something over and over naturally makes you more familiar with it, even if it’s a genre you don’t usually listen to, as some studies have found.

This fun psychological tool advertisers use all the time is also known as the mere-exposure effect, or liking something more because you feel comfortable with it.

But once you hit a threshold, your enjoyment starts to drop.

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An oft-referenced study published in the Journal of Research in Music Education demonstrates this pattern in pop music, which climbs charts before it drops off into an uncharted abyss.

More recently, researchers used classical music to suss out how pleasurable or boring a song would be after repeated listens. The results, presented at two 2010 music and cognition conferences, show enjoyment starts to wane after a critical point, which is consistent with previous studies.

OK blah blah blah, but what about Christmas music?

Via escribiendoxtodo.blogspot.com

Considering "Jingle Bells" only jangle seasonally, we might experience mini versions of that inverted U love-to-hate relationship. Since we don't hear it the majority of the year, it could start a fresh cycle annually.

And since the season is typically short (😒 to retail's Christmas creep), perhaps the end of the season ends right at the peak of the U when it makes you feel most joyous. Meaning if you hate it, maybe your threshold is a bit sooner than others'.