One of my favorites is Amy Grant's two-song extravaganza "Emmanuel"/"Little Town", which is probably the best Christmas song involving heavy 80's synthesizer ever. I'm also a fan of Fall Out Boy's version of "What's This?", The Lonely Island's "Dick in a Box" (which is TOTALLY A CHRISTMAS SONG LISTEN TO THE LYRICS), and the South Park version of "The Dreidel Song" that was done in a round with Cartman, Kyle, Ike, Stan, and Kyle's parents.

Best:

• "Rusty Chevrolet" by Da Yoopers. Sure, it's just a re-worded "Jingle Bells", but it works really well.
• "Mary, Did You Know?" I prefer the version by Kenny Rogers and Wynonna since I love how their voices sound together.
• "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Not the Mariah Carey song (which I've honestly never heard that I recall), but a different song of the same title by Vince Vance & the Valiants. Listen to it here.
• "Paper Angels" by Jimmy Wayne. It's a song about the Salvation Army angel trees, and I think it does a wonderful job showing sympathy to those who have less.
• Any version of "Winter Wonderland" that has the slower "Over the ground lies a mantle of white…" intro and/or the alternate bridge ("And pretend that he's a circus clown") and alternate final verse ("When it snows, ain't it thrillin'…") I just feel that the "When it snows, ain't it thrillin'" gives the song more variety and better closure.
• "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" can be hit or miss, but Ricochet put out an awesome a cappella version.
• Almost any version of "Please Come Home for Christmas".
• "12 Daze of Christmas" by Fay McKay. I heard this on the radio last Christmas and couldn't stop laughing.
• Nearly any hymn. I'm a church organist, and I love cramming in as much Christmas music as I can during Advent.
  • Also, let me throw in this a cappella "What Child Is This?" by 4 Runner. I'm a sucker for great harmonies.
• "What If Jesus Comes Back Like That" by Collin Raye.

Worst:

• "Feliz Navidad". It's like José Feliciano had 3 minutes of melody but only 10 seconds of lyrics, so he just made the musical equivalent of a Head On commercial.
• The "Cradle Song" melody for "Away in a Manger" by William J. Kirkpatrick. It sounds like a knockoff of the "Mueller" melody. And yet Brits use only "Cradle Song" for that hymn.
• "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". Agree with Master Inferno back in post #43. Ghost stories? Marshmallow roasting? Dafuq?

Also, "My Favorite Things" is fine, but it's NOT A DAMN CHRISTMAS SONG.

edited 26th Nov '12 12:25:15 AM by Twentington

Best:

• Any Christmas song by The Carpenters. Seriously, their whole "Christmas Portrait" album is Crowning Music Of Awesome.
• "Jingle Bell Rock," just about any version.
• Anything by Burl Ives.
• "O Holy Night." I've drifted from my Catholic upbringing, but it still gives me goosebumps.
• "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."
• "Silver Bells."
• 'Wonderful Christmas Time', although I hear that one's pretty polarizing.
• "The Twelve Pains of Christmas."
• "Carol of the Bells."
• "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."
• Oh, and "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas" by Eels.

Worst:

• "The Christmas Shoes." FUCK THAT SONG.
• "Santa Baby."
• That God-awful version of "Jingle Bells" with the woman singing it so fast it's nearly unintelligible. "Jingabellsjingabellsjingallthewayohwhatfunitistoride..." you get the idea.
• "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
• Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"

edited 28th Nov '12 8:29:17 PM by BrainSewage

How dare you disrupt the sanctity of my soliloquy?

Best:

• Everything TSO has made, ever.
• Gothic Christmas - Within Temptation
• Vader, Did You Kow? - Vic Mignogna
• Christmas at Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic

Worst:

• Anything with Rosie O'Donnell in it (self-explanatory)
• Feliz Navidad (waste of existance)
• Little Drummer Boy (bores me)
• It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (has already been adequately explained in this thread)
• Baby It's Cold Outside (date rape; not cool, man)

edited 30th Nov '12 1:48:35 PM by TheAirman

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

Baby It's Cold Outside is literally one of the most terrifying songs in existence. The guy is a date-rapist/stalker who uses threats of disease and bodily harm to a woman to get her to sleep with him.

Best:
Kurtis Blow - Chirstmas Rappin'
Carol of the Bells
Boyz II Men - Let It Snow (if it counts)
The Temptations - Silent Night
Trans-Siberian Orchestra's version of Canon in D. The one with the children singing "Merry Christmas" at the start.
Donny Hathaway - This Christmas
Vince Gualardi (however you spell it) - Christmas Time is Here *

Run DMC - Christmas In Hollis

Worst:
(apparently) Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby (I just don't care for it)
Rockin Around The Christmas Tree (See above)
Jingle Bell Rock (another old novelty Christmas song. Eh)
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Again, see above)

edited 29th Nov '12 10:12:13 PM by PhysicalStamina

It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.

Even The Christmas Attic? I love their first and third Christmas albums, but can't stand that one.

It's definitely my least favorite of the Christmas albums; but, it was my first exposure to them, so my nostalgia goggles kick in.

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

Re: "Jingle Bell Rock" - I was just recently introduced to "Jingle Rock Bell", which is basically "Jingle Bell Rock" via Pokémon Speak. I wouldn't say this justifies the existence of "Jingle Bell Rock" itself, but it probably will replace the real lyrics in my mind now.

edited 1st Dec '12 12:35:07 AM by MikeK

Carol of the Bells, Carol of the Bells, and not really Carol of the Bells but probably based heavily on it.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

How did I leave this off my best list?:

Update: I have still not heard “The Christmas Shoes.” I am beginning to think it’s some sort of mass-hallucination.

edited 1st Dec '12 1:37:47 AM by Bananaquit

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

I can take care of that. There are actually two versions: one by NewSong and another by a mega-obscure country girl group called 3 of Hearts. It was the only hit for either act.

ETA: I like Kenny Chesney's "All I Want for Christmas Is a Real Good Tan", too. He also did a pretty good Caribbean-flavored version of "Jingle Bells" with some new lyrics.

edited 1st Dec '12 5:19:14 AM by Twentington

Best: "Another Christmas Song" by the one and only Stephen Colbert.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/211035/november-23-2008/a-colbert-christmas--another-christmas-song

RE: "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"...b-but...that's one of my favorites. As for the seemingly nonsensical lines (really? You hate it just for those lines?), think of it like sitting around the fire on a cold winter's night to keep warm and telling stories to entertain each other. As for the "scary ghost stories", a very probable allusion to A Christmas Carol.

RE: "Baby It's Cold Outside": Y'know, not everything has to be perverted. The whole "date rape" interpretation is not what the songwriter intended at all, even if it could sound like that.

Not really, please explain. Maybe I just have nostalgia goggles on due to having heard A Rosie Christmas all throughout my life, but I don't see why one should write it off just because it has someone you dislike.

Even the one with "Peace on Earth" sung in counterpoint to it by Bing Crosby and David Bowie?

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Ghost STORIES, plural. There is only one Christmas ghost story that I know of. I still think it's a very egregious Lyrical Shoehorn so non-Christmasy that it throws off the entire song for me.

Also, I generally like The Oak Ridge Boys, but "Christmas Is Paintin' the Town" is awful. It just has the Oaks singing one four-word line with a very flat melody, then a bunch of kids SHOUTING the line back.

edited 20th Dec '12 2:14:33 PM by Twentington

Best

• Traditional: "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", "Patapan", "Good King Wenceslas", "Silent Night"
• Popular: "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Blue Christmas", "Mary, Did You Know" (but only the version sung by Mark Lowry)
• Offbeat:
  • "We Three Kings" from one of the Claymation Christmas specials...it's the choruses that make it for me.
  • "The Restroom Door Said 'Gentlemen'", "The 12 Pains of Christmas", and "O Come All Ye Grateful Deadheads" by the Bob Rivers Group

Worst

• "Little Drummer Boy" - The rum-pa-pum-pums annoy me to no end.
• "The Christmas Shoes" - Glurge has never been so puke-inducing.
• That version of "Jingle Bells" that has the "Oh I love those J-I-N-G-L-E bells" as backup in the chorus...the entire thing grates on my nerves.
• "Rudolph", "Jingle Bells", "The 12 Days of Christmas" - overplayed in the extreme

edited 20th Dec '12 5:49:59 PM by Willbyr

Oh gosh, my sides!

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Holy crap I taped that special way back in the day.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

Yeah, it's January and these things are still showing up...

Worst

"Do They Know It's Christmas" Band-Aid

That "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart, But The Very Next Day You Gave It Away" Thing. I don't know what it's called, but you know the one!

"Feliz Navidad"

Bieber's "Mistletoe"

Best

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (Fixed)

"Walking In The Air" From The Snowman

"Good King Wenceslas"

Any and all pagan or non-Christian songs to the winter or the solstice. You can never go wrong there!

edited 12th Jan '13 3:24:27 PM by Ficus

You mean "Last Christmas"? Which version? The original by Wham!? Taylor Swift's awful cover? The many other mediocre covers of it that exist?

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"?

Geez, I can understand not knowing the name of a song you dislike, but calling a song you like by the wrong name is a cardinal sin of music. Seriously.

edited 12th Jan '13 2:46:34 AM by 0dd1

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

If you ask me, all of them are terrible. Mostly by virtue of the lyrics.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

What is it about the lyrics specifically that you don't like?

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

This might just be me, but I find the events being described annoyingly cliche.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Christmas songs with that theme weren't exactly common at the time. Even still, I really don't hear many songs about Boxing Day breakups.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

^^^^ Damnit, you're right. My mistake.

The Wham one is the one that I've heard the most, but I don't particularly like any of them. ^^ And I would agree most strongly.

And it's only a Christmas song by merit of having the word "Christmas" in it. It could just as well be about a Halloween breakup were you to switch around the words.

edited 12th Jan '13 3:21:06 PM by Ficus