[PeteyBoy]

Favorites--The whole "From The Creative World Of Stan Kenton comes--A Merry Christmas." album. Everything by Frank Sinatra (but especially "Ave Maria"). "Green Christmas" by Stan Freeberg. Dislikes--"Blue Christmas", "12 Days", and "Little Drummer Boy".

[gg188]

I collect Christmas music, too, Sam!

And your list is SPOT-ON!! Good going!

ps----on Kevin & Bean's KROQ Christmas cd of '99 (they are in L.A.---I am down here in the South, btw) one of the song parodies is that of Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town," and it's hilarious.

The "Boss" begins as the sleighbells jingle and the piano plays, "Hey, band, do you know what time of year it is? Yeah, it's Christmas time." And it is exactly like the famous live recording from the early 80's (my son and I saw him in concert in 85 at the height of his and of the song's popularity, but I digress...)

So the Boss goes on about how he was walking down the Boardwalk in Joizey, and the wind was whipping yadayada, and it was so cold and he didn't have a coat, and here he saw coming down the boardwalk a homeless guy with an old coat and trousers that were about to fall down. So Bruce thought, gee at least *I have a belt.

So as the two reach each other, the Boss seems to take pity on the homeless man's falling pants, and says, "So I saw his pants, and I had a belt, so I took my belt off---" and of course you expect him to say he gave the belt to the homeless guy---but instead he says,"and I wrapped the belt around my hand, beat the sh*t out of the homeless guy and got his coat..."...It goes on, but that was the funniest part.

[NovemberCharlie]

If you don't like Feliz Navidad, there's an Elmo and Patsy song called "Dear Senor Santa Claus." It's campy, true, but if it were played on any radio station today the DJ's would probably get lynched by La Raza or LULAC, so it's not a total loss.

[SAMWolf]

"Barking Dogs Jingle Bells"

"Mary's Boy Child"

[BibChr]

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (aka "Have Yourself a Christless Little Christmas")
Merry Christmas
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Anything about Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, or any other fictitious figure

Dan

[Silly]

"The Pretty Little Dolly" by Mona Abboud Rusk, on the Dr. Demento album is great. It's a live performance of her on Johnny Carson (you can hear him laughing at the end). Never fails to make me laugh.

"And she screams in realistic pain if you break her leg!"

[Hawkeye's Girl]

Last year the local rock radio station here did a really good Santa Claus parody of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" with lyrics like "I AM SANTA CLAUS!" and "Leave him cookies and beer, he'll be back to your house first next year!"

[pankot]

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
All I Want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

[Junior]

Don't know about bad Christmas songs, but some of the best have got to be on the two Christmas albums by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Talk about getting in the spirit!

Also, a few years back one of those famous Italian tenors did a version of O Holy Night that moved me to tears, it was that good.

Of course, no one ever plays those kinds of songs on the radio any more ...

[k2blader]

I'd agree with all of those, especially the top 2, except for Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Have only heard it 2 or 3 times total on the radio in the last several years. Nice melody. :)

[Pharmboy]

Funny how different we all are. I look forward every year to hearing all of them at least once. We always are driving somewhere (upstate NY or Virginia in the past 10 years) and search the radio stations so we can hear them all. And we're Jews...

[Pharmboy]

Oops--almost forgot. Merry Christmas.

[bleudevil]

I'm with you, except I don't mind the Band-Aid song that much. It predated "We Are the World" and is a decent song musically, IMO.

I'm an old-fashioned conservative when it comes to Christmas music. I don't want funny (usually it's not, anyway), trendy, rock 'n' roll, cutting-edge Christmas music. Bing Crosby and Perry Como are fine with me!

[bleudevil]

A few years ago, a drug/alcohol dryout center used "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in a commercial. It played over scences of Mom and the kids home making cookies, with Mom sending worried glances at the clock. The the scene flashed to drunken Dad stumbling around on a dark street, dropping the car keys ... as someone crooned "you can count on meeee."

Talk about a guilt trip! It made me want to either run down to the center and sign up, or throw something through the screen.