It’s easy enough to identify the best Christmas tunes (like every track on the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, perhaps?), but worst is a bit harder. The self-sacrificing foks at Retrocrush, however, have made their picks and posted the videos. Clearly, Paul McCartney’s "Wonderful Christmas Time" (pictured) is wretched; I imagine those unstoppable synth lines are what it would sound like if one of those little worms from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were put into my ear. But NewSong’s "The Christmas Shoes"? That’s a new one. And what a video: the kid is dressed in a Dickensian urchin cap, his mother in a pilgrim hat, and apparently — if we go by the gigantic bottle of nasal spray by her bed — she’s dying of a really intense sinus infection. I can’t think straight after watching that. Help me PopWatchers. What are your choices for the Worst Christmas Songs Ever?
Worst Christmas Songs Ever?
Blog Roll
- Best Week Ever
- BuzzSugar
- Coolfer
- Dark Horizons
- Deadline Hollywood Daily
- Digital Music News
- Gold Derby
- Hits Daily Double
- Hollywood Elsewhere
- Hollywood Wiretap
- Huffington Post
- Hypebot
- Idolator
- jaded insider
- Lost Remote
- Movie City News
- Movie List
- MTV News
- Pop Candy
- PopBytes
- Popeater
- reality blurred
- Salon: Arts & Entertainment
- Stereogum
- The Beat
- The Programming Insider
- Thompson on Hollywood
- Tuned In
- TV Barn
- TV Tattle
- TVFanatic.com
- TVNewser
- Velvet Rope
Featured Video
Realite: Reality TV justice!
Worthy winners on ''Runway,'' ''ANTM''; just desserts on ''Top Chef'' and ''SYTYCD''; bonus Kris Allen!
More 
Today's Most Popular
-
-
The Ausiello Files Ask Ausiello: Spoilers on 'Bones,' 'Glee,' 'Chuck,' 'Gossip Girl,' and more! -
-
-
Doc Jensen on 'Lost' 'Lost': Reboot anxiety?
Special Coverage
'Twilight' Saga: 'New Moon'
It's almost here! Get all the latest news, photos, video, and fan commentary leading up to the big premiere
More
Comments (1-30) of 300 Add your comment
I listened to about ten seconds of “Christmas Shoes” before being utterly disgusted. It’s tripe. Schmaltzy tripe. Banal schmaltzy tripe with a heaping helping of fake sentimentality.
My office plays “Wonderful Christmas Time” over and over and I grow to hate it more each tiime. So for me you hit the nail on the head.
Tom Petty’s horrible mumbleathon “Christmas All Over Again,” which I now have memorized, along with “Wonderful Christmas Time,” thanks to a fun seasonal job at [department store redacted]. Grr-arg.
“Christmas Shoes” makes me physically ill, but it pales in comparison to “Dear Mr. Jesus.” Remember that one? Sure it’s a serious subject, but the execution is horrid, especially when the dude comes in wailing — Michael Bolton-esque — at the end.
SO bad it’s good: Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, “Little Drummer Boy.” I die laughing every time!
Hey, what’s all the hate for “Wonderful Christmas Time”? It has been my favorite Christmas song since I was a kid!
But I gotta say that the worst Christmas song has to be “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. It constantly plays at my job, and I feel like tearing up the stereo every time I hear it. Puh-leez!!!!!She could’ve switched Christmas for Halloween, and it would’ve been the same thing!!!!
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christam is You” drives me up a wall every time I hear it. And when she screeches that last “Yooo-oooh-yoooooouuuuuu” gah make it stop!!!!
Obviously Vickie and I are on the same page
The best “bad” Christmas song is Billy Mack’s “Christmas is All around” from “Love Actually. Period.
Hey, I LOVE “Wonderful Christmastime”! And John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” If Ringo ever does a Christmas song, I will like it, too!
Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree and Jingle Bell Rock. AND every Christmas song performed by the Beach Boys, eeeeyyuuuuch.
It must just be but I don’t find “Wonderful Christmastime” that bad. Then again, I love 80s Disney music and it kinda sounds like that. Is it degrees of badness as in Macca should have done something better than that or do you really think it’s that bad? Discuss.
Anyway, one really bad holiday song I love is “The Night Before Christmas” from Carly Simon. Everyone I know hates this song, but I love it! It’s from the “Mixed Nuts” movie soundtrack, which is a holiday movie only I like. Wow, I’m discovering so much about myself…
Oh no, I LOVE Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You!! It’s one of my absolute (modern) favorites, that and Springsteen’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Mariah’s song is just so happy, I can’t help but feel all giddy every time I hear it.
I’m with Mike….Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, “Little Drummer Boy.” Ugh.
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas- Gag me!!!
The one that stands out in my mind is so bad it’s good…David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy”. It’s just surreal!
Billy Idol doing “White Christmas”…cringe-worthy.
oh that waitresses song “christmas wrapping” is just weird and stupid. and i agree about that paul mcartney song… but im also not a fan of that john lennon song with the kids in the background… i cant listen to kids trying to reach high notes that are too far from reach. makes my ears bleed.
Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips….yuck!
The dogs barking Jingle Bells tops my all-time list of bad songs period. This year in particular I’ve heard Barbara Streisand’s Jingle Bells while shopping and started looking for the exit. Sounds like it’s being played at the wrong speed. As far as lyrics are concerned, “Do you hear what I hear?” is just plain bad.
Having spent the greater part of my teenage years working in a mall, I’m going to go with Wilson Philip’s ‘Hey Santa’…. I can still hear it echoing around in my head, and it’s painful to me.
I was in a hardware store yesterday and accidentally heard Jessica Simpson butchering a Christmas song… I think it was “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, but I was trying hard to not listen. It was baaaaaaaad. (And by the way, “Wonderful Christmastime” is wonderfully cheesy.)
My sister made me listen to that Newsong thing and now I hate her. My own sister. I hate her. Thanks, Newsong, you losers.
Hey now. I’m not a big Christmas Shoes fan (a radio station I used to listen to played it every hour), but where do you get off saying it’s fake sentimentality? Why so quick to judge someone’s motives? Uncalled for.
Simpsons Christmas Boogie tops my list of annoying Christmas songs.
I have to try to be very respectful with this because Dean Martin died on Christmas Day, 1995. But I really dislike his easy-going version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” because he keeps referring to the title character as “Rudy”!
Laura, I say it’s fake sentimentality because when I can listen for ten seconds and hear about a dying mother, pathetic wretch of a child, and get a reference to “if Mama meets Jesus tonight”… Well, that’s just the trifecta of heartsting-tugging Christmas schmaltz.
I’m stuck listening to Xmas music for 8 hours a day at work (work at a radio station that’s gone all christmas), which means it’s really not hard to find a bad Christmas song. Christmas Shoes and Hey Santa are definitely at the top, but what about “Happy Holidays” from Andy Williams? Some might say it’s a classic, but let me give you an example of the lyrics:
It’s the Holiday Season
So Whoop Dee Do
And Dickory Dock
Don’t forget
To hang up your sock
…
He’ll be coming down the chimney down (yes, down twice)
What the hell is that? It’s not like the song has 20 verses which would explain why the lyrics got a little thin near the end.. that one is constantly in my head..
Gloria Estefan’s Love on Layaway is pretty cheese too..
“Christmas Shoes” is the worst song period. Nothing else even comes close.
Runners up include:
“Hey Santa” by Wilson Phillips
“Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney. Are you simply having a wonderful Christmastime, Paul? Go have it somewhere else.
The Destiny’s Child version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” There are no redeeming qualities to this song whatsoever.
There’s a version of Jingle Bells by Liza Minelli (or it could be Barbra Streisand) that used to play on the stereo every hour or so when I worked retail that makes my ears bleed.
The one by the bitter sounding guy where he says “They sold me a fairy story, they sold my a silent night…” -I’m sorry that you’re sad, but don’t ruin it for the rest of us, dude.
“Merry Christmas, Darling” by the Carpenters. I think I need some insulin.
Anybody but John Lennon singing “Merry Xmas (War is Over), but especially Celine Dion… actually anything by Celine Dion.
Anything by Manheim Steamroller. My brother can make the same noises on his Casio keyboard.
Sara, just because you view it as so doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come from the artist’s heart. Keep in mind that I don’t like this song, so I’m not defending it for that reason.