It's Beginning to Sound a Lot like Christmas

Here it is, mid-November, Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, and Christmas music is being played on many of Utah's radio stations - some on a 24/7 basis.

I love Christmas music, and I'm honestly ready to listen to it once the dust from Halloween clears. What I often don't love, however, is the song selection employed by many of these radio stations. It is often, well, boring - for lack of a better word. Every other song seems to be sung by either Céline Dion, Gloria Estefan, or Mariah Carey. As far as putting me to sleep goes, many of these songs work faster than, say, tuning in to C-SPAN or the Home Shopping Network.

I would love to be a radio D.J. for a day and shake up any one of these Christmas song lineups significantly. We all can dream, right?

Because I have nothing better to do today, and due to a discussion I recently had with some friends about the worst or most boring Christmas songs out there, I now present my Top 10 list of the worst Christmas songs:

#10. "All I Want for Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey It's a Mariah Carey song - need I say more?

#9. "Redneck 12 Days of Christmas," by Jeff Foxworthy This song only serves to give me yet another reason to dislike country music.

#8. "The Little Drummer Boy" I don't doubt the Little Drummer Boy's heart nor his good intentions, but I think a drum is about the last thing a mother would want her newborn baby to hear.

#7. "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band As a children's song this is harmless, but when Bruce Springsteen tries to make it sound funky, it just comes across as annoying.

#6. "Do They Know It's Christmas," by Band Aid In the mid-'80s, a group of pop and rock singers, including Bono and Phil Collins, got together and formed Band Aid with the intention of raising money for the poor in Africa. However noble that effort was, the result was this song, which at times sounds like a rejected Superman theme.

#5. "Mary, Did You Know?" by Kenny Rogers Everytime I hear this song, I want to scream, Yes, Kenny. She knew! She knew before anybody else!

#4. "O Little Town of Bethlehem," by Bob Dylan "O Little Town of Bethlehem" was one of my favorite Christmas songs until I recently heard Bob Dylan butcher it like no one else could. This one really has to be heard to be believed - it's that bad.

#3. "Feliz Navidad," by Céline Dion If you thought José Feliciano's original version of "Feliz Navidad" was bad, well, Céline Dion's is 100 times worse because of - well, Céline Dion.

#2. "Christmas Shoes," by NewSong Pretty much everyone I've talked to lately is of the consensus that this is a terribly annoying song in spite of its intention of spreading Christmas cheer and goodwill. I don't think anything further needs to be said!

#1. Santa Baby No matter who sings it, be it Madonna or Miss Piggy, this is a dirty, filthy song that sounds like nails on the chalkboard to me and is easily my least-favorite Christmas song ever recorded.