Determining the worst Christmas songs of all time ultimately comes down to a matter of taste. There will never be a consensus on the best or the worst. Also, some massively popular songs — we’re looking at you, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” — will inevitably show up on both best of and worst of lists.
But while we live in a world caught in the clutches of moral relativism where no one can agree on the existence of right and wrong, good and evil, or beauty and ugliness, it’s important to establish that there are some Christmas songs which are objectively bad.
There are lots of obscure Christmas songs that almost no one listens to, like New Kids on the Block and their cringe-worthy “Funky, Funky, Xmas.” This list, however, includes songs which are still popular despite how bad they are. These terrible singles keep playing over and over on radio stations across the nation, burning into the eardrums of listeners and making everyone a little worse for it.
Without further ado: here are five of the worst popular Christmas songs that radio stations won’t stop playing.
“The Christmas Shoes,” by NewSong
Holiday-themed jingles are meant to evoke emotions and make you feel a certain way, but the problem with the melodramatic narrative found in “The Christmas Shoes” is the same one present in so many explicitly Christian entertainment efforts – it’s trying too hard.
The song was written by Christian vocal group NewSong members Eddie Carswell and Leonard Ahlstrom and was released in 2000. It became massively popular shortly after, reaching number 31 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart spending one week on the top spot of the Adult Contemporary chart.
The song features the narrator shopping on Christmas Eve when he encounters a young boy who wants to buy a pair of shoes for his terminally-ill mother but doesn’t have enough money. The poor little boy explains how he “want[s] her to look beautiful if mama meets Jesus tonight.”
The intent of the song is clear. Christmas shouldn’t be about materialism, but rather should focus on love, faith, and family. And while this song is despised by Leftists for being so-called “poverty porn” and presenting the wealthy narrator as being too self-congratulatory after giving the boy money for the shoes, the real problem with this song is the syrupy sentimentality that makes it embarrassingly cheesy rather than reflective.
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“Wonderful Christmastime,” by Paul McCartney
This holiday staple from 1979 gets a lot of radio airtime even now, but it must be from people who are intentionally tuning out the lyrics. All it takes is a moment of contemplation to realize that this effort from a former Beatles band member is lazy, nonsensical, and outright bad.
Even setting aside the obnoxious synthesizers in the background, which is difficult to do, the overall message of the song makes zero sense.
The song begins,“The mood is right/The spirit’s up/We’re here tonight/And that’s enough.”
Then there’s the chorus: “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime. Simply having a wonderful Christmastime.”
Verse two isn’t any better. “The party’s on/The feeling’s here/That only comes/This time of year.”
The third verse isn’t even words, but is mostly noises. “The choir of children sing their song/Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding/Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh/Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh/Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.”
McCartney clearly didn’t put much effort into this one, yet it remains a popular play on all the holiday stations. The real question is, why?
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“Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” by Band Aid
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a charity song written in 1984 to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia. It was originally recorded by Band Aid, a group of popular British and Irish musicians including Bono, Phil Collins, Boy George, Paul McCartney, Sting, George Michael and several others.
It was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure after a series of reports on the African famine aired on the BBC, drawing more attention to the issue. The song succeeded in raising millions for the cause and was even re-recorded and repurposed for future issues, including an Ebola outbreak. But just raising money for a good cause doesn’t help fix its problems or explain why it’s still in such heavy rotation today.
The lyrics are a major part of the issue here, with “throw your arms around the world at Christmas time” and “Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” standing out as some particularly egregious lines. Again, it makes no sense why this song has become such a popular Christmas song when it’s so strangely specific.
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“Santa Baby,” by Eartha Kitt
For some reason, a slew of female vocalists feel compelled to record their own version of Eartha Kitt’s consumerist ode, “Santa Baby.”
The song is already eye roll inducing thanks to the overall sentiment. Kitt first released the song with Henri René and His Orchestra in 1953. The lyrics beg Santa to bring the singer a cache of ridiculously expensive gifts, including a sable, a convertible, a duplex, blank checks, a yacht, and the deed to a platinum mine.
It doesn’t help that each new version seems to up the ante on being more sexually suggestive than the last with each new singer breathily requesting for Santa to “hurry down the chimney tonight.”
Truly, the whole thing is a big “ick.”
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“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” by Jimmy Boyd
Listening to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” as an adult is way different than listening to it as a child, which only becomes more painfully apparent as parents have to explain to their kids why this song isn’t abhorrent without giving the punch line away.
The song was originally recorded in 1952, though The Jackson 5’s 1970 version gets a lot of radio playtime. Young kids might wonder why a little boy is singing about his mother getting frisky under the mistletoe with a man she’s not married to and why everyone seems to find this so amusing.
Those in the know realize that Santa is (hopefully) the family patriarch and that husband and wife are just expressing some of their Christmas cheer while dad is dressed in a Santa suit. But for little kids, the whole concept is alarming. Especially when the narrator worries what his dad will do if/when he finds out.
Maybe this song would be less offensive decades ago before non-monogamy and promiscuity were celebrated. But in this degenerate age, this type of thing just isn’t that funny anymore.
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