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We’ve been “rocking around the clock” to the Christmas music on Public Square this week.

The holiday spirit is palpable as Yuletide tunes of many different genres drift softly or swingingly from the red-and-green bedecked courthouse surrounded by a wall of pine trees and carefully swagged strings of lights radiating out toward the surrounding businesses.

Visitors to our quaint little square might think they’ve found a piece of Christmastime heaven right here in Leitchfield, and I have to admit it is about as charming as charming gets….right?

Well, of course it is, but…but…okay, maybe I’m a little bit of a “Scrooge.”

Christmas music has never really been my thing, and while I try really hard to get into the spirit and go with the musical flow, I keep getting closer and closer to investing in an excellent pair of ear plugs.

On the day the music began, I sat in wide-eyed fear at my desk inside of our glass-front office on the square. I must have looked like a wild animal just after it has realized it’s been caught in a trap because a co-worker quickly attempted to calm me down by saying “Maybe it won’t be so bad. It’s just like working in the mall.”

“OK,” I told myself, “I can handle this. It’s just like working at the mall.”

Now, I had to repeat this mantra a few (hundred) times throughout the day, but I made it home without even one Christmas-music induced anxiety attack and was pretty darn pleased with myself, if I do say so.

You might think this is the end of my story, but you’d be wrong. Very wrong. Because it was when I walked through the door of my little house a few blocks away from the office that I realized just how traumatic the next month was going to be.

I can hear the music in my house.

At times it is soft, barely audible. At other times, it seems like my neighbors are hosting a rock concert. I can cover it up with the TV or the radio, or I can talk above it. But always, always it is there.

Throughout the evening and into the first night, I nervously tapped my foot and bit my nails, wondering how I’m going to deal with this never-ending stream of jolly tunes.

I waited as patiently as I could for the sweet relief of silence when the music finally ceased, but my waiting was all in vain. It never stopped. Not when I finished my dinner, not when I climbed into bed, not when I woke up humming “Holly, Jolly Christmas” at 3 a.m.

I considered calling my landlord and explaining that these are inhumane living conditions and I’m moving. Tomorrow.

I thought, too, about pleading on my hands and knees for them to at least put a timer on all this joy and shut it down at, say, 9 p.m. so I don’t have to hear it in my sleep.

But as I sit and write this, it is Day 3 of the assault … I mean …. music, and I have survived. Sure, I cover my ears and rock back and forth now and then (it doesn’t seem to help because the songs have seeped into my brain by this point), but the point is that I’ve survived.

I’ve heard that what doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger, so thanks to whoever thought up the ‘round-the-clock-Christmas-music-on-the-square’ idea. You’re making me stronger than I ever thought I could be.