The holiday season is here and while spirits are merry and bright, there’s always annoying parts about the holidays. Long lines at every store, the stress of buying presents and balancing your checkbook or trying to get along with your in-laws during holiday dinner can be unbearable. But nothing compares to the unbearable pain of listening to Christmas music.

Christmas music is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Every fall, Christmas music invades the airways of almost every radio station wherever you live. Some stations start playing Christmas music as soon as October, while others start as soon as Thanksgiving is over. Getting in your car and trying to find a radio station that isn’t playing Christmas music is almost impossible. It’s too early to be blasting “Jingle Bells” through every car speaker and through department store.

Christmas music is the tenth circle of Dante’s Inferno, simply because there are 12 Christmas songs that are constantly re-recorded by different artists. These songs never change, they’re the same lyrics year after year. Plus, the more they get recorded by new artists, the more they lose the charm of what they once were. No one is writing new Christmas music and if they do, the songs aren’t what people end up listening to over Christmas.

Christmas songs are just bad. They have no beat, no sustenance and there can only be so many songs about one single holiday. If Christmas songs want longevity they need to be more original but able to stand on their own. But that means that the public has to support these songs like they support Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole’s renditions of their holiday favorites.

When I turn on the radio in winter, it’s because I want to relax and hear something that I can drive home to, not to hear “Deck the Halls” and its nine different copies on repeat. Christmas music shouldn’t be shoved down everyone’s throats and stations that blast “Santa Baby” on repeat should opt for pure silence.

Christmas music is overrated and not even Michael Buble could save this one.

Opinions expressed in The Nevada Sagebrush are solely those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of The Sagebrush or of its staff. Jacey Gonzalez studies journalism and can be reached at jaceygonzalez@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.