It’s time once again to deck the halls and be merry and wear ugly sweaters. To get myself in the mood, I like to hit the eggnog and amaretto—light on the eggnog and very heavy on the amaretto—with hopes of drinking myself into a coma and hibernating in my recliner until a couple days before Christmas. Unfortunately, I have a job and responsibilities and crap like that, so I can’t really do that. So on my way to work, I tune my car radio to the local soft rock station where they’ve been playing Christmas songs since a few days after they stopped playing Christmas songs last holiday season. I enjoy many of the tunes, but there are a few that make me want to slam my car into the nearest live nativity scene. I know that sounds pretty extreme, but anyone dumb enough to stand outside in a shepherd’s outfit for hours should probably be eliminated anyway.
So in no particular order (because they have equal suckability) here are five of the shittiest Christmas songs you’ll want to avoid this holiday season.
Last Christmas
by Wham!
Considering every song ever recorded by Wham! sucks, this one never had a chance. The lyrics suck, George Michael sucks (no news there), the other guy—whatever his name is—sucks. It’s just a giant suck-fest.
Here’s hoping this is the last Christmas I ever have to hear Last Christmas because if I hear Last Christmas again next Christmas, it may very well end up being the last Christmas for George Michael and that other guy.
Wonderful Christmas Time
by Paul McCartney
It pains me to say that Paul McCartney’s stab at a Christmas song makes me want to stab my eardrums with an icepick. It’s hard to believe the same man who wrote masterpieces like Yesterday, Hey Jude, and Let it Be could come up with such a disjointed mess.
Who’d have thought that John Lennon, the darker half of the most prolific songwriting duo of all time, would write the beautiful Happy Xmas (War is Over) while McCartney would give us this awful pile of crap?
Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer
by Patsy & Elmo
Too bad Patsy and Elmo didn’t get run over by a bus on their way to the studio to record this dumbass song.
This is the kind of crap that appeals to your average Trump voter whose idea of knee-slappin’ hee-larious humor is what you get from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour—especially when that fat feller says “Git ‘er done!”
Jingle Bells
destroyed by Barbra Streisand
There is nothing wrong with Jingle Bells—a classic holiday song. There’s also nothing wrong with Barbra Streisand’s voice—one of the best.
What is wrong is Barbra takes a fun little tune and runs amok constantly changing tempo and assaulting your senses with a stuttering ja-ja-ja-ja-ja-ja-jingle bells until you want to take a hammer and beat the shit out of your car radio.
The Twelve Days of Christmas
by anyone who ever sang it
Unless the partridge is Shirley Jones circa 1960, I ain’t interested in receiving this crap. And what’s with all the fowl? Turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, geese a-laying, and swans a-swimming means lots of birds a-crapping on my carpet. And all the people! I generally don’t like people even if they’re quiet. Drummers drumming, pipers piping, maids a-milking, and Lords a-leaping? Get these hyper assholes out of my house!
The nine ladies dancing, on the other hand, I might accept as a gift. And that’s only if they’re wearing g-strings while wrapped around stripper poles.
May I please add the following to your list:
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Feliz Navidad
I admit that I get a certain kick out of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey,” but it is a well-known fact that I have no class.
Let It Be was a masterpiece alright, a masterpiece of crapola. Happy Xmas (War is over) wasn’t exactly prescient, was it? Other than that, right on.