Today, a special Christmas guest post from Colin.
They say that the first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem, so here goes:
Hi, my name is Colin and I have a holiday music hangover.
There are a lot of Christmas songs that I love to hear/sing, but there are also some that I simply despise with every fiber of my being, and those songs must go.
A bit of back story: after a torturous 18 months of piano lessons Mrs. Haynes, our neighborhood music instructor, took me to the side and recommended some other teachers that might be better suited to my “special needs”. I seemed to learn piano the same way horses learn to do math, through brutal repetition interspersed with negative reinforcement. Somehow, my lizard brain can still recall about half of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, but after that there is a wall. In retrospect, Mrs. Haynes wasn’t just cancelling my classes, she was putting a suffering beast out of it’s misery.
So, you could say that I’m not gifted, musically. The thing is, music is something that really
should run in my veins. My paternal grandfather emigrated to America from Brazil to escape a military coup (he says), but mostly I think he wanted to join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So, for the next 30 years he did just that, touring the world and being super popular. I will admit that I have a soft spot for that ole’ Timey Tabernacle sound. I feel like the MoTab is a flavor that you pour on other music to make it seem more wholesome, like sonic wheat germ.
All warm fuzzies aside, however, my Grandfather’s choir falls breathlessly into one of the most heinous of holiday sins, the Christmas Song Album. Every time a musical group sells their soul by committing a Christmas album, a baby dove falls to the ground dead. Furthermore, does it feel like as soon as Summer Vacation is over the masochists that program Muzak for shopping centers release the floodgates of yuletide drek? I know it does for me. It seems that economic forces have made Christmas into the Superman of the Holiday Justice League, with Batman/Halloween and Wonder Woman/Thanksgiving just filling space for the Big Guy. That makes Memorial Day an Aquaman, I think.
I would now like to enumerate for you some of my most loathed holiday music.
1. Santa Baby Eartha Kitt 1954
This is the “Happy Birthday Mr. President” of holiday songs. I realize that things were different in the 50’s, with the rampant sexism andwhatnot, but this feels like the musical equivalent of a Mad Men episode. I don’t drink, but Santa Baby makes me want to. If Santa were a modern employee, this song would be legally actionable. Eartha Kitt was so great as Catwoman in the Adam West Batman series, what happened?
2. Jingle Bell Rock 1957 Bobby Helms
I will forever associate this song with leg cramps, thanks to the Windsor Elementary Holiday Program of 1987. Being the shortest and youngest boy in my grade I was thankfully put in the front row which, when I passed out, made my fall to the gym floor not too physically traumatic. When your teacher tells you not to lock your knees, she/he is not kidding.
As an aside, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree also makes me light-headed, and it seems like they always play these two back-to-back.
3. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
I’m not certain which institution of higher learning Dr. Elmo is an alumnus of. Let’s just assume, for now, that he is not board-certified. This song is pretty dark for a holiday classic. In fact, Dr. Elmo may be the Ghost of Christmas Future of this list. I will also never be able to un-hear the homophobia in Dr. Elmo’s voice when he mentions with a wink and a sneer that he would never give a license to “a man who plays with elves.”
4. Any version of any holiday song remixed with dogs barking. Any time, ever.
You too can remix a beloved classic with the Casio 5000. Don’t let complete tone-deafness and utter lack of taste stand between you and the righteous vengence of your listeners. To be fair, Jingle Bells is an OK song, minus the barking dogs. It reminds me of Mr. Krueger’s Christmas where Jimmy Stewart is riding through the snow covered Mountain West. Not to toot my own trumpet, (by which I mean, I will now toot my own trumpet) I am writing this very sentence in the building Jimmy Stewart was mopping in the opening scene of the beloved holiday masterpiece. Take that, American Fork High School guidance counselor that told me I should keep my future expectations “more realistic”!
So, how are you dealing with the Holiday Music Hangover?
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I love the corny music of Christmas. It helps keep the season in perspective. And I would add “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” to the list.
I second that motion, that song must go.
Santa Baby is just plain creepy. But Blue Christmas might be the most obnoxious of all.
I know, right? Blue Christmas is the title of David Lynch’s next movie I think. J/k, but it does give off a creepy vibe.
Blue Christmas is also one that’s played over and over and over, and over in stores, way too loud.
My kids (ages 2 and 9) can both sing Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer and I hate every word of it!
You, Sharon, are a brave human. You know what Joseph Smith said about that:
Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
Except for Dr. Elmo, he really is my enemy.
Colin, I haven’t been around long enough to know how frequently you guest-post here, but I would like to request that it be often. Totally aside from content, your style just works for me!
I hate most popular Christmas music, which always makes my nieces’ annual elementary school Christmas program a particularly painful couple hours. I’m with you on Santa Baby, and I hate Baby It’s Cold Outside, too. I really, really hate Wonderful Christmastime. And I don’t know if it’s heard anywhere outside the elementary school programs, but We Wish You a Swingin’ Holiday makes me consider violence.
Amen to the awfulness of the date rapey “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” Popular Christmas music is uninspired and pretty uniformly terrible. I usually just call it a day and go in for classics and Sinatra.
And “amen” to Miri’s suggestion that Colin guest post more often! ;)
Oh you know, I am mostly here to cover vacations and whatnot. I’m kind of a D&S intern.
(But not toward the kids.)
That was close, you’re lucky i don’t have 911 on speed dial. J/k!
Bahahahahahaha – I can only laugh and say “sucks to be American”. Okok. I guess it ain’t so bad to be American, but in my eyes, it is when it comes to Christmas music. American Christmas music is about the worst my ears have come across. It just insults every sense of my being. And particularly my music loving soul. I cannot say which songs I hate the most, since I haven’t even bothered to take enough time to listen to songs to be able to name them. The sound is usually enough. I know the ones you listed, and I hate them all.
I don’t get Christmas music hangovers, because I wisely listen to the ‘good’ Christmas music, and avoid all places that will inundate me with the bad. :)
I was in too many choirs in Utah as a teenager and a college student, so I know way too many soft pops versions of Christmas songs, and I can sing them with gusto when they come on the loudspeaker in stores. I wonder why my kids don’t like to go shopping with me.
I forgot– my absolute most hated song is LeRoy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride”. We sang it two years straight in “Girl’s Glee” in junior high, and most of us were too inept to get the syncopation right. And, even if it’s right, it’s way too cute. And then there’s the immortal lyrics like “it’ll nearly be like a picture print of Currier and Ives, these wonderful things are the things we remember all through our lives.”
Pop, pop, pop!
Santa Baby has never bothered me but now after having watched that….it really REALLY does.
I know I will never be able to un-hear it.
I have a fairly uniform ban on Christmas music. I really cannot stand it. It’s allowed only once at my house, as we put up the Christmas tree. Since we don’t OWN any, this year we played classic Christmas music from Pandora. Even then, I had to skip about 1 in every 3 songs because I just. couldn’t. take. it.
The vast power of the Music Genome Project couldn’t fix this? Curse you, Tim Westergren, curse you I say!
Holy crap pants this is why I hate listening to Christmas music on the radio! We must be related. Seriously though, Colin this proves we came from the same parents. Why you always tormented me with the notion I was adopted is beside me. I appreciate your wit and humor on the situation. I could see you writing for NPR
I have always been mystified as to what it is about Christmas that causes normally discerning folks to suddenly abandon every last shred of intelligence and reason, and subject themselves to the self-torture of listening to some of the most inane music on the planet for three whole months. Thank you for putting my feelings into words.
What’s worse, however, is the strange compulsion that most popular “artists” have which forces them to make even worse covers of already bad Christmas songs. There are only so many ways you can make “Jingle Bells” more flamboyant, but popular musicians seem bent on digging up every last one, rather than at least coming up with some new way to curdle egg nog. I work at a major retailer to put myself through school, so I hear the worst of it blasted over the PA system from October to January, and I am reaching the point where if I hear another terrible cover of “Santa Baby” or “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” I’m going to murder a baby reindeer with a sharpened peppermint stick.
I dont believe this! Smile
If I hear Jose Feliciano saying Feliz Navidad one more time, I’m going to scream so loud I can’t hear it anymore.