If the Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving, the Christmas Concert season begins in the first weekend of December. Some groups perform the same music ad nauseam — especially Handel’s Messiah, a work that Congress should pass a 10-year moratorium against performing — and others program new and interesting music every year. Just trust us when we say that, if you want to hear a Christmas Concert in this city, you can. Throughout the month of December. Oh, please, can’t someone make it stop?

NOT CHRISTMAS:
>> On Monday (November 28, 7:30 p.m.), the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, comes to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society. The program combines one classic, Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, with a local premiere, Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, featuring soloist Colin Currie. Tickets: $40 to $95.

>> The only free concert we really recommend this week is on Friday (December 2, 8 p.m.) at the Library of Congress. The Amelia Trio will perform, with flutist Eugenia Zukerman, a program featuring music by Beethoven, Roussel, and Mendelssohn. If you show up a half-hour early, you can wait for an unused seat and save yourself the usual fees at Ticketmaster.

>> Piano superstar Lang Lang will perform a stellar work, Chopin’s first piano concerto, with the National Symphony Orchestra on Thursday through Saturday (December 1 to 3, various times). The technique will be impressive, but it may not add up musically. The NSO will also perform the 1968 version of William Walton’s first symphony, which is something we would definitely like to hear. Tickets for the Kennedy Center Concert Hall range from $20 to $83.