The question before us today is how early is too early to embrace the holiday spirit.

Specifically: When is it OK for a radio station to begin playing all Christmas music, all the time?

Several years ago I did a column on this topic after WOLX/FM 94.9 began an all-Christmas-music format the day before Thanksgiving.

That seemed pretty early. OK, really early. But then, a couple of weeks ago, I was driving around Madison punching the radio buttons in my car and heard the unmistakable sound of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

This year, WOLX went all Christmas music on Nov. 5.

Before addressing the timing of the format switch, let me add that the artist singing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” on WOLX was not Bob Dylan, although it might have been.

Dylan released a holiday album, “Christmas in the Heart,” in October, and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” is on it, along with “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Silver Bells,” “Winter Wonderland” and several others.

On Monday it ranked No. 22 on Amazon’s best-seller list, though not everyone has been impressed.

One Amazon reviewer, C.B. Manges of Pennsylvania, headlined his review, “Oh God, Make the Bad Man Stop,” and wrote the following: “I love Christmas. I love Bob Dylan. This collection of Christmas cacophony causes me to cringe. Forced to sit through it again I might very well have to hang myself by the chimney with care.”

On Monday, WOLX program director David Moore said the station has not played the new Dylan album, but expects that WOLX’s sister station, 105.5-Triple M, may do so somewhat closer to Christmas.

Moore also said the reason WOLX went all Christmas so early this year is the same reason it has been going all Christmas for nearly a decade now. It works. People listen, and ratings go up.

“It’s huge,” Moore said. “There’s a significant audience increase. It was so successful last year that we decided to do it around the same time this year.” Last year WOLX went all Christmas on Nov. 7.

The phenomenon is not unique to Madison, of course. Hundreds of radio stations around the country now go all Christmas music this time of year. In Fresno, Calif., last year, three separate radio stations went all Christmas.

Even among those true believers, however, there is disagreement about how early is too early to pull the trigger.

The program director at one of the Fresno stations was quoted in the Fresno Bee: “Christmas music before Thanksgiving is just ludicrous.”

Moore of WOLX said the earliest he has heard of a station making the switch is Halloween.

Love it or loathe it, the all-Christmas formats debuted more or less by accident in the mid-1990s. Stations that were just signing on the air, or considering a format switch, would begin playing Christmas songs a few days before the holiday. Then, without alerting anyone, and often on Christmas Day itself, they’d dramatically switch to their new format.

That stunt would generate interest in the new format, but radio executives noticed something else. Many listeners got in touch to say they liked the continuous Christmas music. And a new format was born.

Apparently, a lot of people like it. Personally, I can’t stand it, and if that makes me a Scrooge, well, at least I can switch stations.

It reminds me of the time in December 1997 when a vice president at Home Savings on the Capitol Square called to tell me the bank had begun playing “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Jimmy Stewart tear-jerker Christmas movie, in their lobby, over and over, during every hour it was open.

“Dear God,” I said.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said.

Now I know what I should have said. I should have said the next thing we know, Bob Dylan will release a Christmas album.

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