The 10 Most Annoying and Ubiquitous Holiday Songs

Warner Bros.

It might sound curmudgeonly to say you hate certain holiday songs, but please understand that our disdain grows from love: We love many traditional holiday standards (think "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby or, ahem, "The Little Drummer Boy" by Bob Seger), so we're dismayed that they're joined in the rotation by Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" or "Santa Baby" by Madonna—grating familiars that we'll be hearing every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas until we shuffle off this mortal coil.

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MORE ON HOLIDAY MUSIC:
Jack Hamilton: The Secrets of Great Christmas Pop Music
Hampton Stevens: 'I'll Be Home for Hannukah': The State of the Jewish Holiday Song

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Taste in music is of course subjective, so we don't begrudge your possible antipathy towards the aforementioned Seger song (a certain wife despises it) or John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" or "Feed the World (Do They Know It's Christmas?)." But when it comes to omnipresent holiday songs, those don't approach the 10 Most Annoying and Ubiquitous. Mind you, there are worse holiday songs in existence than these we're about to discuss, but you can probably navigate the season (if not your life) without hearing the likes of John Denver's "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk this Christmas)." But can you make the same claim about Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne"? If so, you're a unicorn who dances between the rain drops.

Unless you remain home during the month of December and do all your holiday shopping online (which is antisocial and rather depressing), you have to give yourself up to the minefield of mood-altering song possibilities emanating from your car radio (which you can somewhat control) or from mall sound systems and Starbucks holiday CDs (which you can't). No matter what you do, you probably will not be able to avoid those songs that irk you the most—the ones with half-baked lyrics, bad jokes and Paul McCartney's synthesizer. Just know that you're not alone in your hate.

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