Little Drummer Boy, no longer brings joy 
Let it Snow, let it Snow, oh NO 
Winter Wonder Land, shut up, there’s a plan 
Ditto and concour. And to add: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, ANYTHING by the Chipmunks, and “All I want for Christmas”
Now I’m a gonna clean my mind out with Fairytale of New York.
In the UK there are several different versions of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” vying for top pop song. This is not my favourite piece of music.
The Shrieky Ladys singing the Drummer Boy is my least fav. Yesterday in the OR that song came on and everyone started singing along in a horrendous falsetto. Good thing our patient was under general anesthesia or we’d have collectively been sued for malpractice…
Actually, I sorta like the Drummer Boy-- nice little story to it. I’ve heard other versions of it that I really enjoyed. It’s just that women’s choir version that gets my knickers in a knot, especially the part where they go up high…
A Christmas Carol that I like is I Saw Three Ships. It’s actually getting some air play this year. I heard an interesting, well thought out arrangment on WV public radio yesterday. I’ve yet to run across another person who has actually known the name of the song and only a couple of people who said that they’d recognize this song as a carol.
If you are a rural mail delivery person in the Appalachian Mountains, I can understand why any mention of snow or Winter Wonder Land would bring a feeling of dread, because it is hard enough to drive safely on those roads even when they are not covered with snow and ice. Being retired from my regular job, I no longer have to scrape ice and snow from my car every cold winter morning so that I can drive to work. However, my wife still has to make an early morning commute on the freeway, so now I have to worry about her. At least we both have cell phones so that we can communicate if there is a problem. Today, with the roads covered with freezing rain, I am hoping not to receive a call from my wife saying that she made it to work safely but that she forgot her glasses. Now, back to playing Jingle Bell Rock on my penny whistle.
I think you get a toxic buildup of some of these songs after years upon years. My daughter (who’s 18–the one in the avatar) still can’t wait until the day after Thanksgiving when several stations switch to all-holiday-music, all the time, format. Burn out will come somewhere down the road.
I do like the version of Drummer Boy sung by Bing Crosby where David Bowie–making a guest appearance on Bing’s Christmas special–harmonizes with Peace on Earth. It has gotten a bit too much radio play in recent years, and approaching tiresome status for that reason…that’s what always happens.
Here’s a vid of the show clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKTHvW2JcAA
Maybe part of what I like about this is the backstory, revealed by Bing’s daughter Mary in an interview. The show aired shortly before Bing’s death. Apparently Bowie and his wife showed up for the taping clad in full Ziggie Stardust mode, which was a bit weird to take for the extremely conservative Crosby.
That very well could have been it!
I like that one too, but as you said, it has been getting far too much airtime as of late. I really like the Bare Naked Ladies/Sarah Mclachlan version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. I’ve heard it only once so far this season, which is a grand thing indeed. Here it is on the Yertube…I love the jazzy aspect of it.
The best way to avoid the schmaltz is to not listen to radio.
Today it is snowing and blowing so hard I can hardly see across the street. We are supposed to get about 50 cm this weekend. What better way to get in the spirit than to sing about it?
djm
I like Mannheim Steamroller.
I drive my wife a bit insane with it.
–James
Shmaltz like John Denver - Please Daddy and Merry Christmas from the Family, or something more up beat like
Oi to the world? How else can you have a Wonderful ChristmasTime? Heck even Bruce Springsteen likes it when Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town. For the Metal heads, Who can resist Manowar or the lead singer to Testament singing “Silent Night”? Pet lovers must like Jingle Bell Dogs.
Worst ever: George Michael - “Last Christmas”
I’m working from home today in anticipation of an evil commute (Nor’easter today in RI), and my son woke up singing that one. I’ve since listened to much else, but in silent moments it creeps back in.
SAVE
MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Oh yeah, and anything by Mannheim Steamroller just makes me cringe.
This won’t really mean a lot to you americans, but there’s this swedish christmas song called “Tänd ett ljus” (Light a Candle) that drives me nuts everytime I hear it. I nearly vomited when I awoke in the middle of the night a week or so ago when my drunkard neighbour started playing this crap at full blast, not the first disturbance from there. After about 5 minutes of this stuff I grew tired of it and called the cops, and 10 minutes after that I got to watch and hear with lots of amuzement when some guards came and knocked violently at their door for a minute or two. They didn’t open so eventually the guards went down to the basement and turned their power off and wrote a report to the landlord 
Anyway, here’s the song. And you’ll probably understand why I find it so disgusting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCcfNkfb0bQ
Uuuuh. Now I need to get that out of my head again, better get some
whisky
…and the Mick Jagger / David Bowie duet version is the crappe de la crappe of drummer boys.
Really?
You haven’t seen Bowie and Bing Crosby do it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMhSjDqvRs
Here’s something I’ve never understood:
How is it that songs like “Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland” got to be Christmas songs? There’s absolutely no mention of Christmas or any other winter holiday of any persuasion in them. Is it just because they are about wintertime, and here in the northern hemisphere Christmas takes place during the winter?
All my life I’ve tried to figure this out, and just don’t get it. (And this morning I have the Harry Connick Jr instrumental version of Winter Wonderland stuck in my head, which brought this question to the front of my mind).
They wanted some non-secular Xmas songs,
and the closest they could get was winter
songs. The same sort of reasoning forces me
to endure “My Favorite Things” every Christmas,
because they used to show The Sound of Music
around December, I guess.
I always thought it was because of the whole “brown paper packages, tied up with strings” aspect…it brings in the consumeristic tendency of the season. That was just speculation on my part, however.
It goes back even further than those examples, though. Even Jingle Bells has nothing to do with Xmas, but is played in multiple versions ad nauseum only at Xmas. The only thing I can think that links it is snow, as rebl_rn suggests, and the confusion of Santa’s sleigh (if he really has one at all) with any ol’ sleigh that’s going. Could it be that snow songs are pushed by people in the south, where snow is a much rarer phenomenon? Could it be that Christian mythology for this time of year is so far removed from most people’s reality that it becomes easy to muddle a whole batch of disparate elements into one big grabbag of nonsense to try and justify a celebration at the solstice? Am I pushing an otherwise innocuous thread into PROCTo fodder?
djm
We have it backwards: the winter solstice was a winter holiday long before Jesus, and he wasn’t born at this time of year. At this time of year, it’s the christmas-focussed songs that are gatecrashing, not the other way round.