Christmas Music Start-Date Tribunal Sets Official Date: November 29th, With Mandatory 48-Hour Mariah Carey Moratorium

The Christmas Music Start-Date Tribunal issued its definitive seasonal ruling Thursday, setting the official start of the Christmas music season at November 29th and imposing a mandatory 48-hour moratorium on “All I Want for Christmas Is You” at the season’s opening.

“November 29th is late enough to be decent and early enough to be festive,” said Chief Adjudicator Patricia Loomis, unveiling the ruling from a lectern flanked by two silent speakers. “It gives Thanksgiving its dignity. It gives Black Friday its soundtrack. And the 48-hour Mariah moratorium ensures that the season opens with variety, not a siege.”

The moratorium — the tribunal’s most debated provision — prohibits all broadcasters, retailers, and “enthusiastic neighbors with outdoor speakers” from playing the song during the first 48 hours of the season. “We love the song,” Loomis stressed. “The tribunal’s offices played it 11 times during deliberations. But opening day should belong to the deep cuts. ‘Carol of the Bells.’ The Vince Guaraldi Trio. That one where the dog barks ‘Jingle Bells.’ The canon is vast.”

Reaction from the Coalition for Seasonal Sanity was jubilant. “November 29th!” said coalition member Doug Fenton, 47, who testified in the earlier November 1st case. “My jack-o’-lantern will be long gone. My dignity will be intact. I might even sing along. Voluntarily.”

Radio station K cheer 104.7, the respondent in the tribunal’s earlier premature-deployment case, issued a statement pledging compliance. “We respect the tribunal’s authority and its impeccable taste,” said program director (name withheld by request, “the sleigh-bell guy”). “Our November 29th kickoff will feature 48 hours of Mariah-free holiday classics, followed by a respectful, measured, once-per-hour deployment of the song in question.”

The ruling also standardizes the season’s end date — January 6th, Twelfth Night — after which any establishment still playing holiday music will be subject to what Loomis called “the January 7th conversation,” described in the ruling’s footnotes as “firm but compassionate.”

The ruling’s footnotes describe “the January 7th conversation” as beginning with the words, “Friend, it’s January,” and ending, “in most cases, with an embrace.” Loomis confirmed the tribunal will mark the November 29th kickoff with a private listening party — “jazz only, obviously” — in the tribunal’s chambers. “We’ll play the Vince Guaraldi Trio, drink cider, and sit in silence for the first 48 hours of Mariah,” she said. “It’s called discipline. It’s called respect. It’s called the job.”

“The calendar is a contract,” Loomis concluded. “November 29th to January 6th. Within those bounds: joy. Outside those bounds: consequences. The tribunal has spoken, and the tribunal is going home to listen to jazz.”