‘Tis the season for Christmas music, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can’t escape it. When radio stations and shopping malls play nothing but Christmas music at all times, you quickly discover there’s a lot of crappy Christmas music out there. But that doesn’t matter. Is Christmas or snow or winter or Jesus mentioned in the song? Great! Put it on! Does the song suck? Doesn’t matter, put it on! Gene Autry followed by The Waitresses? Sure it’s all Christmas!!
My least favorite Christmas carol is The Little Drummer Boy. I don’t care who’s singing it, I don’t like it. Before you start hating on me, you have to admit that there is at least one Christmas song that you hate. I’ll give you some options – Jolly Old St. Nick, The Man with the Bag, Santa Baby, Let it Snow, Baby, It’s Cold Outside. There are tons of versions of these songs. And if you hate the song to start with, you’re not going to like a new cover it. The worst offender in this category is Gloria Estefan’s cover of Let it Snow. It’s bad. Really bad. It makes my ears bleed. Here, listen…
Survive that? Good for you. Let’s move on to the “original song” category. These are songs so bad no one wants to cover them. Carney and Wendy Wilson’s Hey Santa is pretty annoying. Mud’s Lonely This Christmas is another bad one. Here’s one you hopefully have never heard of – John Denver, Please Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas. Whaaat? I could go on, but I’ll stop with the worst one , in my opinion…
Now that I’ve assaulted you with the worst of the season. I’ll leave you with some of my favorites, songs that could warm even my cold, dead heart. First off, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas always gives me the feels. If you’ve never seen Judy Garland sing it in Meet Me in St. Louis, do yourself a favor and watch it right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait. I lose my shit every time. It’s a Christmas song for adults. And poor Margaret O’Brien became an adult when she smashed those snowmen…and her childhood. Judy Garland’s version is my favorite. James Taylor’s is my second favorite. If Adele ever decides to do a Christmas album, she HAS to record it.
This one is not really a Christmas song, but this particular version is always played at Christmas because it was featured in the movie Scrooged…
And this Stevie Wonder song always gives me such hope, despite the worst the world can throw at us…
Now to prove that I can hang with the most basic of bitches, the Christmas song I cannot shut off is Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You. Nothing complex, nothing new. It’s just a good song. It’s fun and upbeat. It’s has that nostalgic 60s girl-group sound. You want to clap along. And it’s featured in one of the best modern-day Christmas movies, Love Actually. I am not a Mariah Carey fan, but damn, I love that song. All you want for Christmas is me?? Aw, you got me! And this Carpool Karaoke from last year is a really fun version…
So now, tell me…what are your most and least favorite Christmas songs.
