"Twelve days of Christmas" in an abomination and "The Little Drummer Boy" should be removed from the planet.
I'm with you on both, but particularly the Drummer Boy, which brings about as much Christmas cheer as sour eggnog.
There are carols, there are novelty tunes, there are even some well-written ballads that celebrate the season without getting too corny or too syrupy. Most of them are overplayed, which should encourage today's composers (if that's what they can be called) to create something new and different, even if the lyrics don't have certain words that we all associate immediately with Christmas. But when did you last hear an original Christmas song played on the radio? 1990?
It's a fact that some of the more enduring popular Christmas music was written by Jewish composers: "Let it Snow," "White Christmas," "The Christmas Song," "Silver Bells," the list goes on.
I personally like all 3 of those songs. Wouldn't be Christmas without them.