And you know what? I'm fine with that. The past couple of Christmases have been exercises in forced pleasantness. Maybe it's a step up, but I'm actually quite content not faking the cheer. This year's been miserable. 2019 had an incredibly low bar to clear and it still fell flat. So screw it. And with that said, I'm just go all in and spread some of the Christmas grouchiness to the world around me in the most intrusive way possible. Through Christmas carols.
I've blogged about caroling before, highlighting some lesser known gems and providing a few safety tips for surviving the yule. This time I'm going to focus on the negative. These are the top eight Christmas carols I really can't stand.
1. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
This song is the equivalent of a commercial. Hell, it IS a commercial! They've dusted off the Hershey's Kisses posing as bells thing every year since Coke kidnapped Santa Claus. I've hated this song my whole life because it's so...uninteresting. As a child I can't remember how many times I got dragged into hospitals and nursing homes to go sing this one damn song over and over. It's easy, and it's boring. And all the other kids insisted on accenting the 'sh' sound in 'wish' like they were unconsciously trying to silence themselves. And I know the recipients seemed grateful for the *ahem* effort. But were they? The older I get the more I wonder if it's just a societal pressure to act like any part of this process is touching; just like when you're obligated to say "Yes, I'd love to see pictures of your grandbaby who looks just like every other baby." Wow, I'm in a worse mood now than I was before.
2. All I Want for Christmas is You
...to shut up. I never got Mariah Carey. She can belt out notes, but are they really notes worth belting? I don't think she has one melody in her whole catalog that can survive on its own, her music is just an excuse to show off her decibels. And this is unquestionably the Mariah Carey Christmas song. And you know what it's about? The last note. Nothing else matters about it. It's become a permanent staple of Christmas playlists because people are waiting for that moment they can screech out the word "you" instead of using that energy for something more productive, like actually screaming into a pillow. It's really time to stop equating the quality of this song with genuine classics, like the one they sang in that Fraggle Rock episode.
3. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
I'm not going to give this more attention than it deserves. It's an annoying ear worm. And worst of all, it thinks it's funny. Anyone who tells you this is their favorite Christmas song is not worth your association.
4. The Twelve Days of Christmas
Now the problem here isn't the song itself, it actually succeeds on every level a folk song should. It even has the added bonus of a changing time signature which most people don't notice. The problem is the heated arguments about the lyrics. From day nine on, there's no official ruling on when the dancers show up or how many drummers there are. Everybody feels the same way about it: 'MY way is the right way!' And unfortunately nobody ever thinks to work the issue out until the milk maids have been purchased on day eight. The song just provokes contempt and is best left alone. (Incidentally, 12 lord a-leaping, 11 ladies dancing, 10 piper's piping, 9 drummers drumming. Now take it to the rest of the world).
5. Good Christian Men Rejoice
It's a matter of personal preference, but I don't like triplets (in music that is). In spoken word, I think the rhythm is quite cool; i.e. "and to THINK that I SAW it on MULberry STREET". In song form, triplets just seem to emphasize that the melody is dragging. I grew up in church choirs and sang a lot of Christmas programs. This carol was always slated in the first handful of selections and it's the equivalent of running laps in P.E. Every verse serves as a reminder of how many more frigging times you're going to have to press on through the same horse trot of da-dun *beat* da-dun *beat* monotony before the ordeal is just over.
6. Jingle Bell Rock
Look, I get it. This was 1957, two full decades before rock music actually understood itself. But dear God, why does nobody but the Muppets and the Rock-afire Explosion understand that song with 'Rock' in the title have to, you know, rock? And not rock you to sleep like the Hall and Oates version did (they really should have known better). Every time I hear those sluggish opening chords I want to evict a music engineer to the corner until they turn in a term paper on Desmond Child.
7. O Come All Ye Faithful
This one is straight out of the hymnal. If you go to any candlelight service, you're destined to close on Silent Night, but in the process you're going to be hitting the big three of prerequisites; Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Noel, and this one. It's almost like the value of the hymnals is measured by how often these specific songs get sung, and since they're limited to the month of December you're going to see them in multiple programs. Hark usually goes first as it's the most vocally draining, and Noel is actually a pretty decent carol for a hymn so you naturally want to put a little something into it. But O Come is tedious enough on its own, when you triple it with the other two it's simply mind numbing. Something fun I always like to do in church is time how long the organist sustains the final chord of each verse in O Come followed by how long of a pause before the next verse starts. Sometimes it sounds like she's as fed up with the song as I am.
8. Toyland
We all know this song. Essentially it's the Christmas version of It's a Small World. But despite the fact that this 1903 predictor of commercialism blares through the speakers of every department store and parade route, I can't think of any recent holiday album that has included a cover of it. It's almost like literally nobody wants to be responsible for its longevity. Toyland is filler, when you need a song to run on endlessly while the costumed toy soldiers stumble through the marketplace. Nobody voluntarily listens to the song, much less sings it. In fact, maybe it's accurate to say this never was a carol to begin with, but a mere leitmotif for the Krampus. Come to think of it why don't I throw this out to the bleachers? Does everybody despise this song as much as I do? If that's the case then maybe there's a fuzzy takeaway after all. What if the season is capable of uniting us all in a collective hostility towards a melody line can never be smothered out of existence?
Wow, I think I just wrote the ending to a Hallmark movie.
Merry Christmas Grinches!
We all know this song. Essentially it's the Christmas version of It's a Small World. But despite the fact that this 1903 predictor of commercialism blares through the speakers of every department store and parade route, I can't think of any recent holiday album that has included a cover of it. It's almost like literally nobody wants to be responsible for its longevity. Toyland is filler, when you need a song to run on endlessly while the costumed toy soldiers stumble through the marketplace. Nobody voluntarily listens to the song, much less sings it. In fact, maybe it's accurate to say this never was a carol to begin with, but a mere leitmotif for the Krampus. Come to think of it why don't I throw this out to the bleachers? Does everybody despise this song as much as I do? If that's the case then maybe there's a fuzzy takeaway after all. What if the season is capable of uniting us all in a collective hostility towards a melody line can never be smothered out of existence?
Wow, I think I just wrote the ending to a Hallmark movie.
Merry Christmas Grinches!
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