A Taxonomy of Bad Christmas Music
I hate Christmas music.
Not all of it, mind you. But shopping or dining out in December—visiting any public space with background music, really—always makes me feel like a besieged citizen in an exceedingly cheerful propaganda state: Hark! It is now Christmas. And Christmas is wonderful. So celebrate, you shall.
And whatever, I could live with being a Christmastime grump. But now I have a 13-month-old son, and though he’s too young to know now, he’ll soon come to understand Dad's glaring character flaw. (As soon as next Christmas maybe!) No father wants to ruin the merriest time of year for his son. So I decided I'd do a deep dive into the canon of carols to try to sort the joyful from the painful, so that I could scrub the latter from our family's future holiday playlists.
After some (way too deep) examination, it turns out that not only can Christmas music be sorted into several major categories, but that getting into the Christmas spirit (as opposed to a slow-burning Christmas rage) is as simple as avoiding the particularly offensive groups. In the event that there may be other musical Scrooges out there, I’ve defined and ranked them here, from reindeer-hooves-on-a-chalkboard-bad to new-puppy-barking-in-a-box-good.
1. Hey! It's Christmas! (a.k.a. General Purpose Xmas Notification Songs)
Examples: “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”; “The Christmas Song”; “So This is Christmas”; “Wonderful Christmas Time”; “Here Comes Santa Claus”; “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”; “Feliz Navidad”; “Silver Bells”; “Jingle Bells”
Oh, hey, did you know Christmas is coming up? Guess what... it’s Christmas! I’m happy about Christmas—are you happy about Christmas?
These songs comprise Xmas music’s biggest, lamest category. They have little purpose other than to inform the listener that a holiday called Christmas—which involves presents, bells, wintry fun, and a man named Santa Claus—is forthcoming. They are redundant, insistent, obvious.
Do you know the phrase “Show, don’t tell”? These songs have never heard that phrase. They tell, then they tell some more. Why say “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells” over and over again? Billy Joel didn’t just sing “Piano, piano, piano." He played the piano and then he sang a song about a dude who plays piano. Am I saying I would prefer a song called “Jingle Bell Man”? That’s exactly what I’m saying. I would love to hear a song about a Jingle Bell Man. Jingle your bells, Jingle Bell Man. That’s just one line and it’s already a much better song than “Jingle Bells.”
2. Imperative Anthems
Examples: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”; “Deck the Halls”; “O Come All Ye Faithful”; “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”
Like the General Purpose Xmas Notification Songs of the previous category, these songs are relentless and one-dimensional. Except they take it one step beyond informing you that it’s Christmas: they get all pushy about it, phrasing their winter tidings as direct orders. I’ll have a holly, jolly Christmas when I’m good and ready, you bossy Christmas songs.
3. Orchestra Arrangements That Neighborhood Show-Offs Ruin with Christmas Light Shows
Examples: “Wizards in Winter”; “Carol of the Bells”
Look, Doug, we know you want to go viral for having our gated community’s most “legit” Christmas light display. But you know what’s super not tight about taking Christmas decorations so seriously that you turn your otherwise bland split-level into a LED-flashing strobe? Well, that you’re strobing the neighbors, for one. But also that you could’ve baked cookies or made snow angels or done literally anything else with all of the time you spent meticulously timing your light display so that your widow’s walk would light up at precisely the moment the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s electric guitar kicks in.
4. Legit Jesus Tunes (a.k.a. Traditional Christmas Carols)
Examples: “Silent Night”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; “In the Bleak Midwinter”; “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
These are the songs that actually concern themselves with the historical reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place: the birth of Jesus Christ. Having stood the test of time—sometimes a century or two—they tend to have beautiful melodies and they don’t bludgeon you with Christmas cheer, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, if a song has been kicking it every Christmas since the 1800s, it's going to be a bit overplayed.
5. Greedy Christmas
Examples: “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”; “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”; “Father Christmas” “Santa Baby”
In these, the singer shamelessly belts out—in classic American consumerist fashion—his or her material desires: a hippo, two front teeth, or, in the case of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” figgy pudding. Impressive in their audacity and naked covetousness, the best greedy Christmas songs work because the outlandish requests make us feel better about our own greed for gifts, which seems normal—humble, even—by comparison. Consider, for example, “Santa Baby,” in which the singer strongly implies that, in exchange for gifts ranging from a light blue convertible to a yacht, she might just be willing to have sex with Santa. Which brings us to...
6. Horny Christmas
Examples: “All I Want for Christmas Is You”; “Mistletoe”; “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”
Despite the fact that Christmas offers the listener so many unique topics that go largely unexplored the rest of the year—A story of a deity being born in a barnyard! An old man doling out presents late at night!—singers of holiday songs seem to have a penchant for intently focusing on Christmastime coitus. Mariah Carey swears off presents for her love, Justin Bieber loiters under mistletoe for random passers-by, and that one creepy dude won’t let that lady leave his apartment.
Horny Christmas songs like these use season’s greetings as a pretense. They say they want to take advantage of the holiday—to cuddle up by the tree, to gaze at the flickering firelight in a stocking-lined hearth—but their end goal is a definitively non-seasonal one. That being said, this category of Christmas music gets points for expressing thoughts beyond the hey-it’s-Christmas pabulum.
However, there are also some downright twisted tunes in this category, like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” That poor kid.
7. Christmas Fan-Fiction
Examples: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”; “Frosty the Snowman”; “Little Drummer Boy”; “Little Saint Nick”; “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”
If Disney acquired the rights to Christmas, Jesus and Santa would star in the blockbuster movies, naturally. But the characters in these ditties would feature in the wide offering of Netflix shows: Rudolph, Frosty, Anonymous Drummer Boy, and one of my favorites, “Little Saint Nick,” the name of Santa’s sleigh (per the Beach Boys).
I like these songs because they animate a broader and more vibrant Christmas universe. Nat King Cole, for example, has an entire album filled with them, including a first-person story, “The Happiest Christmas Tree,” in which a Christmas tree headed for a living room gets super psyched about the fact he’s headed for a home and will soon get decked out in lights and ornaments and is just generally about to be totally wonderful.
I would like to see more of these songs. Perhaps one about young Santa Claus, the action-adventure reindeer duo Donner and Blitzen, or everyone’s new favorite Xmas mascot: the Jingle Bell Man.
8. Christmas-Adjacent Christmas Songs
Examples: “Last Christmas”
These songs are the Die Hards of the genre—the story stands on its own, but the setting is Christmas, so they get lumped in with the holiday songs. Unlike, say, “Jingle Bell Rock,” these songs are independently good enough songs to survive in the wild outside of the Christmas season.
9. Run-DMC Songs
Examples: “Christmas in Hollis”
This song slaps.
