Vinay Menon: Santa Baby, hurry down the chimney because we still can’t agree on the Worst Christmas Song

’Tis the season to bellyache about Christmas songs.

Every December, before the icicles arrive, the listicles overhang in the media tundra as holiday music is cold-analyzed for the good and, more often, the bad.

Hark and behold headlines from Christmases past: “The 20 Sh*ttiest Christmas Songs Ever Recorded.” “Holiday Heartbreaker: These Are the Saddest Christmas Songs.” “The 25 Worst Christmas Songs Ever Inflicted on Humankind.”

The Hill recently asked, “What’s The Most Hated Christmas Song?”

Now I fear we have reached Peak Grinch.

That Hill story, which spawned copycat coverage this week, is based on a YouGov report from last year, which in turn was based on survey results from 2020. If this story was a glass of eggnog, you’d be doubled over with food poisoning.

This is not news — this is olds!

But if you’re curious, this data, well past its expiration date, found Eartha Kitt’s 1953 “Santa Baby” is the Most Hated Christmas Song. Not sure it deserves No. 1, not in a genre that includes the novelty matricide of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” or the deeply problematic “Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS This Year.”

Don’t get me started on “Please Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas.”

That oh-so-cheery ditty, released by John Denver in 1973, captures the holiday spirit through the eyes of a child who is pleading with his alcoholic father to not wipe out under the tree again as mama cries and tells the boy to go upstairs.

So, a Merry Christmas to … domestic abuse?

Why “Santa Baby” routinely makes the Top 10 in Most Hated Christmas Songs more than 60 years later is another debate. It’s certainly not due to the silky vocal stylings of the late Eartha Kitt, who could sing a grocery list and make it mellifluous. Maybe it’s the lyrics. This one is a Merry Christmas to greedy materialism and the sex kitten entreaties of a gold-digger who sexualizes poor Santa as a sugar daddy.

Come on, Eartha. This bearded geriatric, who only works one night a year, doesn’t have room on his sleigh to transport a sable coat, light blue convertible, deed to a platinum mine, yacht, duplex, blank cheques and decorations from Tiffany & Co., all just for you.

But the real problem with these Worst Christmas Songs Ever lists is that both music and hate are subjective. We might all agree Bon Jovi’s “Back Door Santa” or Pentatonix’s “That’s Christmas to Me” are sonic abominations. But how is it that Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” now often makes worst lists and is even deemed “racist” when the supergroup’s intent in 1984 was to raise money for starving Ethiopians? The millennials and Gen Z need to give their heads a shake.

On the flip side, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a stalwart on the Greatest Christmas Songs lists. It’s baffling. I will go to my yuletide grave not understanding the global popularity of this treacly dreck. I would rather listen to a crying baby play a broken violin with extreme mic feedback and distortion.

The point is we will never agree on the best and worst of Christmas music.

So why do we keep soliciting opinions in search of a false consensus?

It would be great if musicologists got together to break down the enduring allure of the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” Or explain why Jessica and Ashlee Simpson’s “The Little Drummer Boy” is a crime against humanity. Why, after that first “pa rum pum pum pum,” are you tempted to spike your eggnog with cyanide?

But even the music experts can’t agree on Christmas music.

So we end up with skewed seasonal listicles based on random surveys with dubious methodology and sample sizes. If YouGov surveyed a different 1,000 people this year, the Most Hated list would be completely different.

And that’s the bigger issue when people reflexively hate on “Jingle Bells.”

If we’ve learned anything from elections in recent years, it’s that public polling is not exactly an exact science. Once you open the floodgates and empower the public to name things or offer concert suggestions, the trolls organize and suddenly there are marine vessels named Boaty McBoatface or calls for Justin Bieber to start a world tour in North Korea.

On Tuesday, Oxford released its word of the year for 2022. But instead of relying upon linguists and web analysts, for the first time in history it turned this annual exercise over to the public. More than 300,000 votes were cast in the last two weeks and — little drum roll please — the 2022 Word of the Year is “goblin mode.”

Sigh. Oxford defines this slang term as “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”

So kind of like the protagonist in “Santa Baby.”

Or kind of like Oxford’s rejection of how its own annual reveal should work.

How can “goblin mode” be the word of the year when it’s two words? Do these Oxford nerds not read their own dictionary? Can they not do basic math? Why not just award word of the year honours to “Yo, how’s it hanging?”

You see where I’m going with this festive rant?

We need to stop casting the public into the role of cultural adjudicator.

From Christmas songs to words, it’s the public that’s in goblin mode.

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