It's not that our hearts are two sizes too small. When heard enough, the first few bars of "Little Drummer Boy" can make anyone go Grinch. Here's a cross-section of opinion from the KERA news staff on the worst holiday songs ever.
Which one's the absolute worst? Cast your vote here.
- BJ Austin, reporter: "Little Drummer Boy" and "The 12 Days of Christmas"
"... especially the FIVE GO-OLD RINGS."
- Sam Baker, Morning Edition host: "The Christmas Song"
"It's been recorded to death and nobody has brought anything new to that song since Nat Cole did it, what, 50 or 60 years ago."
- Krys Boyd, Think host and managing editor: "Santa Baby"
"[It] seems to fly in the face of all that is good and noble about Christmas, and about music."
- Rick Holter, VP of News: "The Ballad of the Christmas Donkey"
"My gut reaction is "Little Drummer Boy." But I was actually turned on to a song that's even worse than that."
- Lyndsay Knecht, news coordinator: "Blue Christmas" (by Tammy Wynette)
"Johnny Cash is convincing as someone who's having a blue Christmas, but..."
- Jerome Weeks, reporter, Art and Seek: "Jingle Bells" (Singing Dogs version)
"It sounds exactly like my neighborhood at three in the morning."
- Jeff Whittington, senior producer for Think and host of Anything You Ever Wanted To Know: All of them, when played early and often enough
"I'm always shocked that it's already being played. And so really, I have no choice. I have to go home and put lights on the house."
Reporter Bill Zeeble was so devoted to the assignment of choosing his least favorite holiday song that he actually wrote his own piece. He loathes it for its overt political correctness. Check out the lyrics to “It’s A Green Earth Christmas” below.
It’s A Green Earth Christmas
It’s a green earth Christmas
We wanna breathe, not wheeze.
We need pines and cold clean snow,
Not Nox that makes us sneeze.
I like Christmas greenery,
The non polluting kind,
Pure air, blue water and vegan stuff
It needs to be easy to find!
Stop the soot, and brown waterfalls, and rivers that flame at night,
Christmas should be safe and clean, for it we should not fight.
It’s our green-earth Christmas,
That’s all we ask for now,
Recycle, re-use, and don’t abuse
That which we’ve been endowed.