Least Favorite Christmas Songs?

It is Christmas week! For many of us we will finally be getting relief from the incessant Christmas music that had been blaring through every story and every other radio station since Halloween. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas music but I have two problems: 1. I love Christmas music but there are songs that I cannot stand, and 2. I pledge to fight Christmas Creep, I do not turn on Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving.

So now after nearly two months of Christmas music I have to ask, what are your least favorite Christmas songs?

This is one of my favorite questions because so many people (including myself) get so upset about it. Lets face it there are some really terrible songs out there! I know that one persons terrible is another person's favorite, but I love that you can bring up this question and turn a room of friends into a bunch of bickering children as each tries to defend their favorites.

While I could list several I will restrain myself to my top three:

3. Christmas Shoes

I think this is the dumbest song, but while I dislike it I don't hate it enough to give it anymore space on this blog.

2. Do They Know its Christmas in Africa

I know that I am attacking a humanitarian aid project and the beloved music icons who came together to form BandAid, but while the intention was good the execution of the song was awful. Sure it is catchy but have you listened to the lyrics? Its like reading the Heart of Darkness, it is arrogant and self indulgent, and shows how little we still understand about these people. And as the song says, "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you."

As bad as that is, it still does not make me turn off the radio or leave the room like my least favorite song.

1. Last Christmas

Ugh just writing those words makes me sick to my stomach. Again this as a very catching and beautiful song musically, but the lyrics kill it for me. Lets take a look at the narrative in the song:

Last Christmas the singer gave their heart to someone who broke it. Sad yes but things happen in relationships. It does sound like the singer got used instead of the breakup being part of the normal course of a healthy relationship that just is not right, but we don't know that for sure. I mean we only see it from one perspective.

But then we get to the line, "This year to save me from tears I will give it to someone special." Ok, I know that most people want to be with someone special at Christmas, but doesn't it seem that by putting some kind of artificial deadline on finding a relationship the singer is setting his or herself up for failure again? Love and relationships take time so it seems unlikely that the singer is going to find the love that they so desperately seek when they are working on a deadline.

Then the song takes another turn, the singer runs into the person that broke their heart last year and starts entertaining the idea of trying it again this Christmas with the same person. Its assumable this person is good looking, a good kisser and good in bed, all laudable traits, but is that really the only basis of human relationships?

Oh it gets better, as the singer laments how they were hurt, we find out that the singer is IN A RELATIONSHIP. The singer is willing to throw away what is described in future lines as exactly what the singer was looking for. The singer says that they would do to their current partner exactly the same thing that was done to them the year before.

I hate this song. What Christmas songs bother you?