We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Prompt for 16 Dec 2019: How much Christmas music is too much in one day? What about the retail workers who must listen to it at work?
980 words
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The front door opened, and the man of the house returned from his long day as first floor sales manager for Billings Department Store.
"Let me tell you about my day," Bill said as he took off his heavy car coat and removed his galoshes. As he did so, he remarked, "I'm the only person in the world that wears rubbers." Blanche blushed at the word and thought about saying something but, instead, resumed rubbing off the lipstick marks on yesterday's coffee cups.
"Galoshes," she whispered to herself.
"All day. All I heard all day, every ten minutes, was Feliz Navidad. In between, it was I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, and some other stuff." He folded his scarf and put it under his hat, checking the top shelf for dust. "All day!" He paused, and then added, "Every day."
Blanche half-heartedly said, as if speaking only to herself, "It's Christmas, what do you expect?" She squirted soap on a stubborn spot, her favorite cup, the one that Mattie had squirreled out of the cabinet for their Bunco playoff.
"I don't believe, for a minute, that the Mexicans only have one Christmas song. But that's all they ever play!"
He was getting into his mood, his statements staccatoed like tiny interruptions to himself. He began stomping his feet like he was marching to some unheard tune. Blanche hated it when he got like this; it upset his stomach so he couldn't enjoy his dinner. He'd leave his plate nearly full, push it aside and mutter, "I can't eat this crap. There's acid bubbling up all inside me." He would force a burp and leave the table while Blanche sat quietly with millions of things to say, things she had done, stuff she had bought, her sister's new car and what it could do. And this was the worst of all: every year at this time Bill would come home complaining about the crowds, the mark-ups so they could mark-down the next day and claim a "Gigantic Sale!," the packed parking lot, the grumblings and the unexpected questions that had only impossible answers. But, most of all, it was the incessant music, over and over, running through his head. She could see his head uncontrollably nodding in time with some Christmas jingle running through it as he sat with his paper or the TV tuned to some news program. His fingers tapped, his eyes darted, he paced or walk outside in the cold without a coat--anything to relieve his mind of the demon music.
"A few years ago it was just in the couple weeks before, and then it was the day after Thanksgiving. But, now! But now it starts almost at the beginning of November." And he thundered this last sentence with a wave of his hand that nearly sent the table lamp across the floor. "Nobody! Nobody, in his right mind, would pile the decorations out for a Pre-Christmas Sale in October!" He railed this out while he pattered to the bathroom. "But WE did!" And he closed the bathroom door on that finality, softly but firmly, respecting the integrity of the door's casing.
Blanche continued stirring and worrying over the dinner preparations. He had been working at the store for over twenty years, was promoted twelve years ago, and had raises every couple years until he now made an adequate income that helped her retire to sit at home and become the broody hen that she thought she was. In her time at home she had found some new friends and fostered closer relations with some old ones. A Bridge club, a Bunco club, knitting sessions with tea, Bible studies, and all that old woman junk that made the day go faster. Bill would not let her take on another job for pay; it would embarrass him, he said. But every year, beginning just before Thanksgiving, Bill would storm in like this, complaining about the Christmas shoppers, the crowds waving for attention at the registers and the long, long lines afterwards returning the presents they didn't want. It was both maddening for her as it was for him.
And this thing about the music: it blared throughout the day, every day. He remembered when they had records and the sounds would get scratchy or would click over broken sections, or the tapes that would get worn and would snap and wind themselves around the gears and twirling gizmos in the player and the CDs that would fall and get stepped on and now the deal with piped-in music. At least, in the old days they could choose what they played, and Bill would find a busy time when nobody was noticing and would find some Sinatra or Mancini and slip it out over the speakers that nobody would catch for maybe hours. But now, it was all mandated from some oblivious, invisible fool, some robot that only knew maybe five Christmas pieces. And the most often played was Feliz Navidad. He knew all the words, even the Spanish ones; he could spell each one.
Blanche called Bill to come to dinner. After some time, she went to the staircase and was ready to call again when he suddenly appeared at the top, a Christmas wreath around his neck. It startled her.
"Why are you wearing that?" she asked.
"Because it's Christmas," he replied as he slowly made his way down.
They sat silently at the table, his mouth chewing each morsel, twenty times, as they had been taught back in grade school. Stubbornly quiet, she thought, and she was afraid to talk.
Bill put his fork down and sat back, folding his arms across his middle.
"They're closing the store after the first of the year," was all he said. "They're asking us to take a buy-out on our savings plan."