Too much of anything is not preferred. I like wine, I like red wine. But if all I drank was gallons and gallons of red wine for two months, and nothing else, I would surely lose interest (maybe moving into hate it).
I had started to type my response before stumbling on yours, and, frankly, you’ve pretty much summed it up for me.
Bad singing is actively (but figuratively) painful to me. It is actively unpleasant and an unwelcome intrusion upon my thoughts. I just want to go to the grocery store, get my food, exchange a polite pleasantry with the cashier and then get out. I’d like to do it without having my ears assailed by a budding musician struggling to hold their first note.
And, as you say, there’s a very limited repertoire of music and I’ve heard all six songs more than enough times. I’m just agreeing with you as thoroughly as I can.
On the other hand…
I am not agreeing with you.
I will–and do–wish you all the tidings and seasonsmas and cheerful whatever-you-wants.
I’m just asking you not to play the music. We could talk, we could just pass by each other on the sidewalk and exchange a christmassy nod or a hannukah hello. Just not the music. Anything but the music.
I’ve been so good this year. You could just arrange it so that I got the coal instead if I didn’t have to hear the songs anymore. I’d be more than okay, I’d be thrilled with that arrangement. Just, please, not the songs.
I’m a hater for most of the reasons cited upthread.
That said … in the 80s I worked in a corporate chain restaurant and the officially sanctioned holiday CD was abysmal – sugary and new-wave poppy. After one day of complaints from the staff the manager ditched it and substituted his own mix tape of soul and R & B holiday covers. It positively sizzled and we got constant compliments from the guests.
That small act of corporate defiance is one of my favorite holiday memories.
I like the old carols but the recent stuff makes me stabby. Well, not I Believe in Father Christmas. Our lobby used to play Christmas music on the Muzak. One year they put Harry Connick, Jr.'s The Happy Elf in heavy rotation. I was homicidal by the end of the season. That stupid elf. I would happily tip him into the wood chipper and laugh as his mangled elf parts emerged.
Because it’s so obnoxious and hard to get away from. It takes over all of the radio statios, no matter what sort of music they normally play. It’s everywhere at malls and stores. One of the best things about being retired is that I’m not at the store listening to that stuff all day.
I have my car radio set to two stations – country and classical. (There used to be three, but the oldies station changed to modern rock of some sort.) When one starts playing an Xmas song, I switch to the other. The first time I change from one Xmas song to another, I turn off the radio and leave it off until mid-January.
I can stomach two, and only two, bits of Christmas music–the aforementioned I Believe In Father Christmas by Greg Lake and Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. Sometimes if I’m feeling generous I’ll add Father Christmas (Give Us Some Money) by The Kinks. I play the two that I like precisely twice each, on Christmas morning, as a treat for myself. I’m not a Christian and don’t celebrate the holiday but I was raised a Lutheran and sang in the church choir from an early age so I’m okay with some of the better hymns (although the old school Easter ones are WAY better) if I happen to hear them sung competently but that’s become hen’s teeth these days.
The rest of it can fuck right the fuck off, briskly. I once got stuck in Home Despot trying to noodle out a solution to some household catastrophe and there was a Burl Ives album playing that had me so stabby it gave me a migraine. And if I get nailed by The Little Drummer Boy and knocked out of the Challenge I will CUT A BITCH. 
Even worse: “Mele Kalikimaka”.
Songs I do like:
“Hard Candy Christmas”
“Stuck in the Smokehole of Out Tipi”
“Snoopy’s Christmas”
“Numbah One Day of Christmas”
And even though I’m an atheist, I think Handel’s “Hallujah” is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
Song I hate the most:
“The Little Drummer Boy”
They are using this, and others like Mariah Carey, over at Guantanamo, now that water-boarding is off the table.
Some of this is going to echo things that others have said.
I hate Christmas, period. It has no redeeming features. If it is celebrated religiously, it is about an event in which I don’t believe and which I think has been in general a scourge on the world (not the fault of the original guy, if there was one, but of everyone who came after). Otherwise, it is a commercial tsunami which is impossible to ignore or evade. Remember how much of retailers’ annual sales usually come from the holiday season. It is non-stop buy buy buy, spend spend spend. And the targeting of all of that to children and to buying incredibly overpriced crap for children (nothing new, the same when I was a kid in the 50’s) turning them into greedy monsters. It is smarmy feel-goodism that has no basis in reality. Even my classical radio station plays “classical” Christmas music during December (not exclusively, I’m glad to say, but way too much, along with the “classical” movie music they play all year long). And to hear things like “this year especially we all want the comfort of Christmas music” is just so wrong. This year especially I want some peace and quiet, along with real classical music.
My sister has the right idea. She is born again, and she doesn’t do any of the Christmas crap, like sending out cards or listening to the crap music. She goes to church (usually, maybe not this year) to celebrate on days appropriate to her and her church, and doesn’t bother other people about it. We disagree about the basics, but on these points we solidly agree.
I know what you’re thinking, if you’ve read this far, and you’re wrong. Everyone should be happy, and if it takes Christmas for that, fine. I don’t care what other people do with their Christmas or other holiday celebrations, except that it is everywhere and inescapable. If it makes you happy, fine, please do as much as you want of it. But include me out. Oh, and if I didn’t mention it enough so far, that includes the music, ALL of it.
Nota bene: Handel wrote The Messiah for Easter, not Christmas.
Not that that stops people from playing it to excess every December.
^ ^ ^ THIS ^ ^ ^
Just how much religious music do you hear in most stores and on most radio stations? Not very much, I bet.
How do you figure? If it’s Christmas music, it’s religious.
I’m not sure “jingle bell rock” is religious. It’s just tedious.
Is it ever played in January? February? Then it’s a Christmas song.
@needscoffee: do you feel that all “Christmas” songs are, to you, religious songs, because they’re played only during the Christmas season? Even songs in which the lyrics have nothing to do with religion, like “Jingle Bell Rock” or “Winter Wonderland”? (I’m not trying to argue, I’m truly curious.)
Not every. I’m a big fan of Leroy Anderson and I love “Sleigh Ride.”
But those are the exceptions rather than the norm. The 1% don’t override the 99% in this instance.
My favorite is the solemn hymn Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.
Religious music has something to do with the birth of Christ. A lot of music played during the Christmas season has nothing to do with that.
The two absolute worst are:
Blah blah blah blah blah f i i i i i i ve gooolden r i i i i i ings blah blah blah blah blah, etc. That’s right up there with A Hundred Bottles of Beer On The Wall.
And Silent Night. Everybody who sings this tries to get so damn righteous. Makes me wanna puke.
Bah! Humbug!
True, but most of it is so closely connected that it’s virtually the same thing. Reindeer=Santa Claus. Sleigh bells signify Christmas. Just as The Dreidl Song is so closely connected to Hanukah that it’s pretty much Jewish. A Christian wouldn’t hear it and not think it was Jewish, regardless of whether the song is religious.