It’s that oh so special time of the year when you can’t leave your home without having your auditory senses bombarded by that most fiendish of sounds: Christmas music. It only lasts about a month, but in that month is crammed enough horrible torture described as music that you will find yourself having flashbacks in July. Honestly, this list could be 500 or 5,000 songs long, but that would get unwieldy and would end with me blowing my brains out and nobody needs that. And so instead, that list of horrible Christmas songs (which describes roughly all of them) has been narrowed down to these, 9 songs that will turn you into a Scrooge.
9 ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth’
This is someone’s idea of cute. That someone is a total asshole. First, let’s set aside how creepy that video is and focus on just how utterly obnoxious it manages to be. The song itself is like nails on a chalkboard, and the worst part is that they trot out some little Annie-esque urchin to warble it so that the adults in the audience all coo and laugh light-heartedly, which means that you’re forced to just smile along in frozen horror lest everyone thinks you’re some sort of monster. But the real monster is the insane animal who wrote this abomination. They used to burn people at the stake for this sort of thing.
8 ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer’
The only solace any of us can take from this wreck is that Grandma is dead and doesn’t have to listen to it. That may sound harsh, and sure, when you were five years-old this was mildly funny, but after hearing it for the nine billionth time you will want to spend the entire holiday season hunting down her grandson and reenacting the infamous “ear dancing” scene from Reservoir Dogs. They’re probably not even allowed to play this in Guantanamo. It’s too cruel.
7 ’12 Days of Christmas’
We’ve all grown up with this song, and so we don’t think twice about it. We just accept it. But if you really listen to it, it sounds like the deluded ravings of an OCD patient. The worst part about this song though is that it attaches itself to your brain like some sort of vicious parasite, and won’t let go until you find yourself waking up mumbling the lyrics like in a fever dream from hell. Also, let’s face it, these are some pretty weird gifts. Basically, some dude or lady dude is just giving his significant other birds every goddamn day, which is fine if you’re Koko B. Ware, but the rest of us just kind of wish you’d take a pass the next time you find yourself near the pet store.
6 ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’
Screw you, Bruce. The original song is annoying enough, and if you really listen to it, it seems almost like a warning. Santa is making a list and he’s going to break into your home and fuck you up if you don’t behave. But if there’s one truism about all Christmas songs, it’s this: they become infinitely more horrible and obnoxious when people try to mix them with rock and roll. It’s horrible. Never do this. You are an evil bastard if you do. It always just sounds vaguely depressing, like the sort of thing that might be playing on the jukebox of a smoky dive-bar filled with drifters on Christmas Eve. It’s not cool, it’s not hip, it’s just a bloated bad idea fed by egomania, greed and hatred for your fellow man.
5 ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’
Every asshole who’s ever picked up a microphone has covered this at one point or another, and oh dear God, just stop already. Please? This is the sort of song you’d expect to hear during Christmas in Hell, with Hitler and Stalin decorating the tree while the devil flings flaming gifts at terrified souls. Then again, that’s really not that much different than Christmas shopping. At least in Hell you know you’re being punished. Here, you just have to pretend that “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” makes you joyful. Even the devil isn’t that mean.
4 ‘Little Drummer Boy’
There is no God.
3 ‘Jingle Bell Rock’
The entire awful experience that is this song is summed up by the opening chords, which sound more like a bird dying than anything worth celebrating. Again, mixing Christmas music with pop and rock is a recipe for madness and despair, and appropriately this song sounds like something you’d expect to find in a police report as the last thing on the radio of a long-haul trucker just before he crashed his rig into a fuel tanker at 2AM on Christmas morning. It’s just soulless crap.
2 ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’
Yo, I think Santa might be a sex predator. If I’m getting this right, he’s basically using the pretense of toys to get in your house so he can seduce your mom. Okay, yeah, yeah, I know it’s supposed to be a cute winky song about how Santa is really your dad, blah blah blah, but it’s still just weird and creepy. You’ve just got to hope that the little kid went back to bed before Santa gave mommy his candy cane. But even if it wasn’t creepy, it’s completely obnoxious in that fake cutesey way that appeals only to your aunt who always gives you those sweaters with the reindeer on them and smells like old candy and secret sadness.
1 ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’
Why, Paul, why? The worst part about this travesty is that all it takes is one person warbling that obnoxious “simply having a wonderful Christmas time” line and you will be humming it to yourself for a month straight. This is why people drink at Christmas. Hell, this is why suicide rates shoot straight up at Christmas. Let’s not pull any punches here. I’m pretty sure that it’s completely legal to hunt down and beat to death anyone who makes you listen to this song. Yes, I’m aware that means you’re now legally allowed to take me out, but if it means that the world gains awareness of what this song can do to people, then I’ll gladly make that sacrifice. Don’t call me a hero. I’m just a man who fucking hates Christmas music.