Guys, as I've mentioned in the previous article, I love the Holiday season. It's a great time of year for sharing, caring, and just being with family. But God damn, do I hate - I mean hate - the schlocky over-commercialization of Christmas. It just ruins what to me is a holiday all about caring for others, loving thy neighbor, and generally not being an asshole for about 2 months out of the year. It's a nice showing of good faith after the devious debauchery and all-out crazy fun of Halloween. Halloween's the time of year everyone does whatever the fuck they feel like, wearing shit they never would any other time of year and letting all their freak flags fly (which is why I love it so), and Yuletide is the time of year when everyone calms down and decides to spread the love around, being nice and cuddly and caring. It's like the Purge, but with much less killing (Black Friday not withstanding).
It's because I love the holidays so much that I feel I need to defend them from an insidious, creeping scourge, the kind of madness rivaling Shub-Niggurath or Yog-Sothoth in the dark grip it has on the Holiday Season. It is an evil, vile, monstrous thing polluting our holidays, ruining it for all sane human beings, and causing everyone around us to switch the station from the mood-setting holiday music of yesteryear to more palatable fare. I'm talking of course about bad, bad Christmas music, but everyone knows about that. Everyone's heard The Christmas Shoes one too many goddamned times, and everyone's getting sick and tired of hearing Let It Snow for the fiftieth time this week. No, I'm talking about a more insidious type of song, the type of song that gets played every year over and over, with a dozen iterations but nothing new to them regardless. They, like Nyarlathotep, have a thousand forms they can take, and all of them are cliche and boring. Like a certain Crawling Chaos, they have their fanatical fans and wistful followers, and also like a certain Crawling Chaos, listening to them enough times will slowly drain your SAN points. Unlike a certain Black Pharaoh, however, they're not nearly as badass.
Lovecraftian metaphors out of the way, I cannot stand certain classic Christmas songs. Because, you see, every single version of them that comes out is the exact. Same. Song. Over and over, never changing, always the same damn thing. There's only so many times I can hear Jingle Bells in so many different permutations before I want to stab myself in the throat with a sharpened candy cane, and I like Jingle Bells. So, here's another list of Christmas songs I dislike, all sharing the common thread of "overplayed to death" but with different reasons as to why they suck for me. You can commence throwing the tomatoes now.
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Oh my God, shut up. It's not enough that this song's overplayed to death and has three or four schlocky sequels to the Rankin-Bass special made from it (the first one was genuinely decent and if you say otherwise I will fight you on it), it's also literally a piece of Christmas commercialism. I'm serious - for those who don't know, Rudolph was never canonically one of Santa's reindeer. He was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter for Montgomery Ward, a Chicago-based department store that is now defunct. The story was printed as a coloring book, then a children's book, and from there the character took off like crazy. Dolls, shirts, toys and books became a thing. The song became a thing, and it's been repeated in a bunch of ways ad nauseam for the last several decades of Christmases since. Rudolph has directly contributed to the commercialization of Christmas. If that's not enough to convince you that it's time to put this reindeer down for good, the song is literally about a misfit being used for his one special ability. Literally every other reindeer in Santa's stable picks on Rudolph mercilessly (maybe they knew he was a hokey piece of commercialized crap, too), all because of his weird mutant glowing nose which I can't even begin to map out the genetics for. Santa ignores him year after year, until one night when it's storming and nasty out he sees Rudolph's nose and goes, "Hey, that's pretty sweet, I can use that!" and hitches Rudolph (who is a fawn at this point, need I point out) up to his sleigh, and uses him to navigate. Oh gee, nice message you're sending there - Guess what kids, you're absolutely worthless until someone in charge decides you're worth something, and then uses you for that sole reason. All eight of the other reindeer are named for their speed (Dasher, Comet, Blitzen), grace (Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Cupid), or... whatever the fuck Donner's name is supposed to represent (Ol' St. Nick's got a morbid sense of humor if he thinks naming one of his reindeer after an infamous cannibalistic massacre is a good idea). Rudolph isn't fast, or graceful, or anything - all he's got is his glowing red nose, and that is literally all Santa uses him for. Santa literally uses Rudolph as a fog light and that is all he is good for. And nobody, nobody should paint Santa like he's a dick that uses people (or reindeer) simply because they're useful at the time.
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town: Guys, I have a rule about songs, I like to call it the Slendy Test. It states that for any song about a person or a person's actions, if you can replace the person with Slenderman or imagine Slenderman doing the actions in the song and it not only makes sense but makes the song way creepier, then the song has failed to send its intended message. So, a romantic song that fails the Slendy Test is not really romantic, a sad song that fails the Test is not really sad, and a Christmas song that fails the Test is not really cute - it's creepy. Santa Claus is Coming to Town utterly and miserably fails the Slendy Test, if solely for the chorus: "You better watch out / You better not cry / You better not pout, / I'm telling you why / Santa Claus is coming to town". Holy shit, not just "don't cry" - you'd better not cry. The singer is threatening the audience. The name "Slenderman" even can be substituted for "Santa Claus" in the chorus, and the cadence still works perfectly. Holy shit that is creepy, but it gets worse - Santa is known for what, basically? Getting into places he shouldn't logically be able to, leaving gifts, and then vanishing without a trace. What is Slenderman known for? Getting into places he shouldn't logically be able to, taking people, and then vanishing without a trace. That's 2 out of 3 traits Ol' Slim and Ol' St. Nick share, which is fucking terrifying. The rest of the lyrics after that don't even fit given that chorus. This song is horrific, not enchanting. So stop fucking playing it every Christmas like it IS enchanting.
- Winter Wonderland: This song literally makes me want to puke. It's made of cutesy-wootsy and sugar. It's literally the go-to romantic Christmas song and it hits every romantic cliche. A bird singing a love song and dreaming by the fire about plans for the future? Urgh, pass me the ginger ale, I'm about to be ill. Let's look at the lyrics about the snowman - the first one says the couple is pretending the snowman's a Parson who is going to marry them. Then the second says he's a circus clown... and the couple plays with him until "the other kiddies" destroy him. How old is this couple?! Are they teens? Adults? Kids? They can't be adults or teens - no teenager would ever refer to themselves as a "Kiddie" (which they do when they refer to the "other kiddies" knocking the snowman down) and no adult that is self-respecting would call themselves that either even if their love made them feel like a kid again. But kids don't get married, and as far as I know they don't fall in love with other kids either. They play marriage, but they would never sit by the fire and dream of their planned future together because that's an adult thing. Talk about your mixed messages! And "We'll frolic and play the Eskimo way" just seems vaguely offensive to the native tribes of Alaska, especially when sung by someone who presumably is or was a white dude.
- Santa, Baby: Urgh. Urgh, urgh, urgh. Let's get this straight right now - my issue with this song is not that it's about a woman who is willing to put out to get what she wants from Santa, so all of you badfems out there about to get all offemded and femsplain to me how I'm slut-shaming by hating this song, shut up and go harangue an MRA or something. I absolutely don't care that the woman in the song is being flirty. I care that she's being a greedy ass and flirting with a married person while doing it. She's literally a) acting like she's trying to get Santa to cheat on Mrs. Claus and b) asking for grossly expensive shit while she's doing it. She wants her tree decorated with stuff from Tiffany's, a yacht, a deed to a platinum mine, a mink coat, a convertible, and plenty more expensive things. First off... you don't flirt with someone who's married, especially with the implication that you want to have sex with them. That's just gross. It's gross when a man does it, and it's gross when a woman does it too. Second, First World Problems, much? Who needs all this rich-people's stuff? Asking for expensive shit is not what Christmas is about, especially when there are suffering people and poor people around the world who could use the money that would buy all that expensive shit to buy food, clothes, and shelter. How dare you, Eartha Kitt and every other singer who's covered this song? How dare you a) support the "women are gold-diggers" stereotype, and b) put out a song about how fucking greedy you are during a time of the year when people are more conscious than usual about the poor and destitute? That's just sick. Just like every other novelty Christmas song out there, this song is despicable and gross, the total opposite of cute. The only time this song's acceptable is when Harley Quinn is singing it about the Joker, and that's because we expect a villain to be despicable and greedy.