As one may have noted, it’s Christmas music time of year again.

I enjoy music. I listen to it often, in my car, at home when I read. Seldom do I select Christmas music for listening pleasure.

There is music connected with our holiday season at home. As I watch my sister and daughter decorate the tree with lights — “Now why are they blinking?!?” — I sat back and played the Benny Hill theme song.

When we were children, my parents had one of those giant, wooden chest record players. My mother was never much for television, so she would put on a Christmas record while we played or read or whatever. We had “Peanuts Christmas,” with a song about Snoopy and the Red Baron, and Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry and the like. And Alvin and the Chipmunks, we can’t forget them. Poor Dave, trying to wrangle the shenanigans of Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

I remember when a bunch of rock stars came together to record albums in the ‘80s, feeding children in Third World countries, if I remember correctly. There were a few memorable songs that time. Bob Seger’s “Little Drummer Boy” makes me cry. Every time.

Recently, I was talking about Christmas music with our sports editor, Jeff Uveino, who is considerably younger than I am. I told him that I just can’t abide that Mariah Carey song that is ubiquitous from Thanksgiving to Christmas. (I don’t even like to say its name, for fear it will somehow start playing near me.)

Jeff said the song isn’t so bad, it’s just the frequency with which we are bombarded that makes us grow weary of it. This reminded me of years ago when I was in college and worked at a local grocery store. The in-store music would play the Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers hit “I’ll Be Home with Bells On” it seemed like at least once an hour. From Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Now, decades later, I still can’t say the name of the song, I sing it. I would be walking about at work back then singing under my breath “Trim the tree and wrap the presents, turn the Christmas music on. This Christmas I’ll be home with bells on.”

According to Google, there are 9,274 Christmas songs. So, with some math, and Google, the average Christmas song is 3 minutes, 45 seconds. There are 10,080 minutes in a week, and 40,320 minutes in four weeks.

That comes out to about 10,752 songs that could be played if one were playing Christmas music nonstop from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

That leaves 1,478 songs that could be repeated.

Shouldn’t that mean we only have to hear Mariah Carey and all she wants for Christmas two times? Hmm… I wonder how we might make that happen.

One song that I could never hear enough — I might even make an exception to the only two times per season for this one — is a duet with David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy.”

Jeff hadn’t heard it before, so I played it for him. He was as blown away as I was. If you aren’t familiar, I would urge you to look it up.

Now I also enjoy a good laugh, and Christmas time is no exception. I’m not a big fan of Grandma’s accidental trampling by one of Santa’s couriers, but I do like Bob Rivers’ parodies of Christmas songs. The older I get, the more I appreciate his “Twelve Pains of Christmas” — finding a Christmas tree, rigging up the lights, five months of bills, whining children — you get the idea.

From all of this, it may sound like I don’t have any Christmas spirit. That’s not the case. I left The Era the other night and saw the Pink Panther on skates in the window of the Main Street Mercantile. The one that used to be part of the animatronic Christmas display in the middle of the Bradford Mall.

And a burst of memories came through.

A gorgeous dress I got for Christmas one year when I was about 8 and how special I felt wearing it. A wooden doll cradle that I think someone in my family made. And the year when I was a teenager and my mother — my sweet, dear mother — got me the CDs of ACDC Live. How she hated that music, but how she loved me enough to get it anyway.

And memories of my daughter, and having to draw out Christmas for days because she wasn’t that interested in opening gifts; she’d rather play with what she got already.

And looking ahead of the love, laughter and (hopefully) lack of Mariah Carey of Christmases to come.

(Marcie Schellhammer is the Era’s assistant managing editor. She can be reached at marcie@bradfordera.com)