10. Jimmy Boyd, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." This Saks Fifth Avenue potboiler from 1952 about a child catching his mother being sexually assaulted by an elderly home invader only becomes even creepier when you realize the kid's mom isn't cheating on his dad, but that Mommy and Daddy have a Santa fetish. Also, what 13-year-old still believes in St. Nick anyway?
9. Lou Monte, "Dominick the Donkey." With Italy in the midst of an economic crisis, Lou Monte's 1960 holiday jingle about Saint Nicola outsourcing his Christmas present deliveries in the Italian mountainside to a retarded donkey suddenly feels more prescient than ever. But that doesn't make it any less irritating.
8.Fogelberg, "Same Old Lang Syne." The concept is touching enough: Fogelberg runs into an old flame at the grocery store on Christmas Eve and they grab a drink and reminisce. But melodramatic lyrics ("She went to hug me and she spilled her purse/And we laughed until we cried") and gratutious details ("We took her groceries to the checkout stand/The food was totalled up and bagged") make "Same Old Lang Syne" a cloying annual annoyance.
7. Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry Christmas." In this new addition to the schmaltzy, nonsensical holiday song canon, Neil Diamond wishes you "a very, merry, cherry, cherry, holly-holy, rockin'-rolly Christmas," before idiotically exclaiming, "Cherry Christmas, everyone!" at song's end.
6. Cyndi Lauper, "Christmas Conga." Holiday cheer has always been all-inclusive. Hell, even the Jewish Neil Diamond has released three Christmas albums. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say a Latin house anthem with lyrics like "Bonga, bonga, bonga, do the Christmas conga!" probably wasn't necessary. But we still love you, Cyn.
5. New Kids on the Block, "Funky, Funky Xmas." This timeless boy-band classic features inexplicable British accents, inexplicable rapping, inexplicable lyrics like "It's snowing outside, but we ho-ho-hoing," and—less inexplicably, obviously—Santa Claus burning his butt.
4. The Cheeky Girls, "Boys and Girls (Xmas Time Love)." Best known for their hit "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)," this Transylvanian duo cracked the U.K. charts in 2004 with a yuletide song based on Sabrina's "Boys (Summertime Love)." The song doesn't have a whole lot to do with Christmas, but there are some synthesized sleigh bells and the video features the bikini-clad twins frollicking in front of a Christmas tree at a festive pool party, so I guess that counts in England.
3. Clay Aiken, "Merry Christmas with Love." This inspirational carol about a lonely widow featuring lyrics like "This year there's no one to open the gifts/No reason for trimming the tree" was originally sung by Sandi Patti in the early '80s, but Clay Aiken resurrected it for his 2004 album of the same name, instantly catapulting it onto nearly every Worst Christmas Song list.
2. John Denver, "Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)." Almost everyone can relate to the sentiment behind "Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)," but a grown man singing "Now I'm almost eight, as you can see" is profoundly unsettling (not to mention absurd), even if that man is the eternally youthful John Denver.
1. NewSong, "The Christmas Shoes." For over a decade now, NewSong's contribution to Christmas music has ruined the holiday season for millions of people around the world. In the song, the narrator (played by Rob Lowe in the video below) meets a little boy who's "dirty from head to toe" and who asks him to buy a pair of shoes for his dying mother so she looks beautiful in case she "meets Jesus tonight." Half-step key changes and a children's choir are added insurance in case you haven't felt cheaply manipulated enough. Putting "The Christmas Shoes" at #1 on this list doesn't do justice to how horrendous it is. The enormous gulf in quality between our #2 pick, "Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)," and this song is the equivalent of a 3.0 and a 10.0 earthquake on the Richter scale. It's not just the worst Christmas song ever, it's one of the worst songs ever recorded.
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