It’s an old debate: Should we start playing Christmas music right after Halloween or wait until Thanksgiving?
If you ask me, I think we should be playing Halloween music all year round, since there’s nothing quite like listening to “Spooky Scary Skeletons” while lounging in a lounge chair outside your Malibu beach house in mid-July.
But that’s just me. Most people, unfortunately, don’t want to listen to “This is Halloween” or “Thriller” all year round. Some people love the holiday season and can’t wait for it to start, even if that means starting on November 1.
Historically, the towns here in Louisbourg have been resistant to the holiday spirit. Last year, we interviewed several city residents and found that the majority of people strongly believe in waiting until Thanksgiving for holiday music, and 22 percent believe in not listening to holiday music at all. So we decided to run an experiment to see if their behavior would change.
As part of our study, we installed hidden speakers in many city dwellers’ homes. Starting on December 26, 2021, we started playing Mariah Carey’s hit song “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, at a level that the human ear can barely hear.
We kept the song playing constantly, trying to imprint it in people’s minds, because they were hearing it all the time (when they were sleeping, cooking, reading, etc…). Every day, we were increasing the volume of the song. The results were interesting, to say the least.
One month after the trial began, people reported hearing a random “All I Want For Christmas Is You” buzz. A month later, people reported their dreams of watching Mariah Carey perform. After two months who – whichPeople dreamed that they performed with Mariah Carey, and a month later, they dreamed that they they were Mariah Carey.
During July, people reported singing “All I Want For Christmas Is You” while they slept.
Needless to say, on November 1, 2022 at midnight, all Halloween music stopped, and Mariah Carey’s very loud voice filled the streets of Louisbourg.
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