Hot Topic: When does the Christmas season officially begin?
Everyone has a die-hard opinion on when it’s okay to break out the tree and the Christmas carols. Everyone. And everyone thinks they are right. Some purists save it for the last week of December, while others break it out shortly after Halloween. Most people consider any time after Thanksgiving fair game, but I say, it starts the moment you see someone wearing an ugly Christmas sweater. It could be anytime, anywhere. And no – you can’t pay your mom a hug to put one on early. It has to be organic.
It used to be that I could increase my chances of spotting an exotic red jangled beasty by hanging out at a library or antique mall, but now that hipsters are crazy for the ugly sweaters, I was free-and-clear to start decorating in *September.
*A special thank you to Northwestern student at the Einstein Bagel on Sherman. You were wearing ripped jeggings and a puff paint Christmas kitty sweatshirt Labor Day weekend, and it looked stunning. I owe you one!
When the folks at Ugly Christmas Sweater.com approached me about taking one of their sweaters and making it even uglier, I thought, Hell, Why not? When in doubt, just add glitter.
If you don’t know this line from Home Alone, you might want to go and get reacquainted.
Originally, I was thinking I would go all crazy on this sweater. Glitz! Sparkles! …But, thing is, I like the sweater so much I backed off and just added some frosting. A tinsel neckline, some stick-on stars, and gold pom-poms. You know, the classy stuff. AND! A couple of jingle bells on the elbows for fun.
Speaking of fun, they sell all sorts of naughty options. Warning: This ain’t your granny’s Santa sweater.
A real life conversation on people who make gift-buying difficult.
Me: Hey, do you still need a gift for your drunk uncle?
Them: You mean, the Libertarian who watches too much Duck Dynasty? Or the one who likes to tell dirty jokes and watches Mexican soap operas on mute? Or the one who takes the boys in the yard to show them how to write their name in the snow?
Me: Yeah. That one.
The folks at Ugly Christmas Sweater.com have generously offered to give away one sweater to an Aunt Peaches reader chosen at random. Any of their sweaters – your choice.
To enter, leave a comment below answering the following question; What is the worst Christmas carol?
Oh, come on. If you ever wanted to rag on Frosty and Rudolph, now is your chance! Leave a comment below. One entry per person. Winner to be selected 9pm Friday, Dec 13, CST.
****WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER****
Winner selected at random : Theo Winterwood.
Theo send me an email by December 21st and we’ll get you that sweater! Emailauntpeaches@gmail.com
nikki hancock
These sweaters are so fun!
As far as carols go, I kind of hate all christmas music! But, the worst would have to be “The Man With The Bag”. It reminds me of my first year working holiday retail and the song haunts me!
maureen rasmussen
I hate Little Drummer Boy. We try and go the complete Christmas season without hearing it. The 1st person in our family who hears it (you have to be honest) loses 5 bucks.
Shannon
Worst Christmas Carol…Hmmm. It would have to be David Lee Roth singing Santa Baby. Really, really bad and I had to hear it every day around Christmas at least 5 times a day when I worked retail. For some reason I can’t find it, maybe Diamond Dave had all record of it destroyed.
Shannon
Okay, I am upset to find this out. That was not Diamond Dave but my beloved Everclear!!!! OMG! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqN9SXC3d6o
House Revivals
Would “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” qualify as a carol? If it does, that one is the worst.
Jamie
I hate that one about the boy and shows for his dying mother when she goes to meet Jesus. Over the top and not in a good way!!
Sarah Holis
Christmas Shoes. My mother hears it and starts crying. She talks about it and she starts crying. Nobody can even mention it in front of her, it’s so awful. Second runner up goes to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It’s just annoying.
Teresa
New Kids on the Block- Funky, Funky Christmas gets my vote. The rapping haunts me for all time.
Michelle L.
There are no bad Christmas carols, only bad Christmas carolers. Love your makeunder! That sweater is the cutest.
Hannah
There are no bad Christmas carols (says the woman who sang “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas while decorating the tree this weekend). I officially love that sweater.
Mary Lou
CHIPMUNKS anything yuck yuck yuck….
love love love silent night on guitar but you didn’t ask that did you?? =)
Jennifer
I used to love Christmas music. Then I worked in the mall for a couple of years. {shudder} I’m only just now getting over the shell shock of one too many Christmas music filled Black Fridays. So with that in mind, Frosty can suck it and Rudolph needs a target on his butt but the absolute worst is “All I want for Christmas is my 2 Front Teeth”. That song makes me want to put an ice pick through my ear drums. Christmas sweaters, on the other hand, are *awesome*. lol
Jenna Wilkin
i was JUST thinking how much i disliked “i saw mommy kissing santa claus.” really, the worst one out there in my opinion. thanks for the giveaway!!!
Stéphanie Gauthier
You don’t know the struggle of dealing with Christmas Carols until you heard the french song “Petit Papa Noël” (Little Christmas Father, is you like). This song is so painful. It’s even worse when sung by kids. A couple of too-high-too-reach-for-most-humans notes, a beat too slow to be merry, illogical lyrics (Why would it be “a bit of my fault” if it’s cold outside? ) and a billion-too-much versions recorded.
For a month a year, I TOLERATE Christmas music. But I simply can’t tolerate Petit Papa Noël.
If you feel like listening to some Céline Dion, here’s her own version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El-n-Rs5A7k
dagan
i absolutely cannot stand “baby, it’s cold outside” and “my christmas list”. yes, let’s sing about rape culture and consumerism! my 2 favorite things!!
Stephanie
Dominic the Christmas Donkey! Thank God it hasn’t caught on enough to be played on the radio. My husband plays it purely to torture me…. the worst.
sadie
I ADORE that sweater –saw it on eBay but can’t justify shelling out my hard earned dollars for it so I hope you pick me!
I despise anything Mannheim Steamroller. It’s just awful.
Stéphanie
My least favourite carol is the Hippo song…for some reason it just annoys me and gets stuck in my head for days!
Dagan, I have to disagree about “Baby, it’s cold outside” being about rape culture. To me, I have always seen it as a young couple flirting with each other. She wants to stay, but society’s expectations won’t let her. The author in this article perfectly sums up my opinion… http://persephonemagazine.com/2010/12/listening-while-feminist-in-defense-of-baby-its-cold-outside/
Anonymous
I always thought of it as a seduction, not rape, song. On the original score, the duet is between “mouse” and “wolf.” It’s been recorded by everyone from Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer to Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone . Last month
Lady Gaga And Joseph Gordon-Levitt sang it on the Muppet holiday special, with Joseph singing the “mouse” lyrics. Lynne
Lorena
Grandma Got Run Over… is the worst!
Anonymous
Grandma got run over by a reindeer!
Love your blog Aunt Peaches!!
-Lisa
lisa_shs_07@hotmail.com
M.
i’ve secretly started liking christmas music over the last few years. i guess it’s just the nostalgia. but i still hate “little drummer boy.” seriously. rum pum pum pum?
tana50
“The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I even remember not liking it when I was a little kid. It’s the Christmas addition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”. It just goes on FOREVER!
Stone Cottage Adventures
Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer… ‘Not very nice! 😉 I love the sweater! -Marci @ Stone Cottage Adventures
Anna
Christmas Shoes, no contest.
Nutbird
Yup, that’s it, Little Drummer Boy! Made no sense.
Nutbird
Poor KiKi! Is she relegated to permanent lifetime blog model? She’s a good sport. What’s funny is that I used to have quite a collection of Christmas sweaters. In the 90’s they were considered quite chic. They were not inexpensive, one was close to $200. I bought my first one from Tory Burch’s husband, the one that owned Eagle’s Eye. That one I had the mother-daughter version. I was the mother.
Lisa
The Twelve Days of Christmas makes me want to shoot something.
Danielle Miller
Grandma got run over.
Lisa Philbeck
Ok, hmmm, Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer is the worst ever. Even though you didn’t ask…love me some ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ as done by Missy and Jase Robertson from Duck Dynasty. Ok yes, I am a redneck…get over it! I discovered the “I wanna hippopatamus for Christmas” song several years ago and it cracks me up! I drove my family nuts singing it around the house that year!!
Lisa Philbeck
Oh and I love your blog, Aunt Peaches!!! Your decorations are awesome!
Evie
Jingle Bells is so unbelievably repetitive it kills me!
brittany
My little brother used to play this horribly irritating song called Looney Christmas, and thinking about it has cause it to become stuck in my head. Lovely.
Christy
Christmas Shoes. It was sweet once. Just once. And “Baby it’s cold outside” definitely should not be a classic. I’m sorry I didn’t hear about that web site before this year’s ugly sweater party. At least I’ll be ready next year.
Shannon Klug
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous
“Here comes fatty with a sack of sh*t” It is a real recording. My father would play it for all of his grandkids and they thought it was hilarious! My mother however, did not!
Anonymous
My screen name is pegbogucki@aol.com. I had trouble getting it to post with it so I just picked anonymous. I think the sweater is fantastic, especially for my youngest son who watches Home Alone several times during the holidays!
jeen-marie
Love. LOVE! All Christmas songs/carols!
It’s the singers that make them bad!
Any Christmas song by the Chipmunks is painful.
jennifer niles
any song on the album of otherwise great collection of songs that stops me from rolling out my sugar cookie dough to skip it on the cd player… so annoying. for example: under the mistletoe by clint black. all is well and good and then bam! messing with my mojo. thank you for the chance peaches 🙂
Nascara
I sawwwwwwwwwww Mommy kissing Santa Claus…
Tory
“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” because when the hell do people ever tell “scary ghost stories” at Christmastime? That just doesn’t make any sense, and yet I’m the only person I’ve ever met who has questioned it.
Anonymous
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is actually a ghost story…a very wonderful ghost story…just saying….love the sweaters, tree, and fabulous posts!
Carson Fuller
Every.Single.Time I turn on Pandora (naturally while stuffing myself with sinful baked goods — that I justify as “seasonal indulgences” — simply because Whole Foods placed the display in close proximity to a reindeer constructed from cans of gluten free noodles) a yuletide tune by Karen Carpenter pops up on the screen. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE GUILT? Trust me, you will NEVER look at Nutella shortbread, let alone Baby Jesus, in the same way ever again.
Ho! Ho! No!, Karen.
(I’M LOOKING AT YOU TOO, BURL IVES!)
Deb
“Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt. I blame 93.9 in Chicagoland for playing that song ad nauseum one year. I’d also like to nominate the entire Mariah Carey Christmas songbook but you asked which one, which means singular. Excuse me. I’m going to put on some Nat King Cole and curl up with a good book.
Gabe
“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” FOR SURE. And while I’m not sure if “Do They Know It’s Christmas” would be considered a carol, but the generalization of Africa is pretty awful.
Tori Simpson
Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer is the worst! Although, I have to admit, it does make me giggle.
Carrie
I don’t like the song Silver and Gold. I heard it on the radio and it was terribly slow and boring!
Kate
I think the worst I’ve ever heard is, “Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas”. IIRC, the first line is, “Please, Daddy, don’t get drunk this Christmas, I don’t want to see my Mama cry…” Can’t get much lower than that, IMHO.
Anonymous
The thing about Christmas Carols, is that they play the same ones on the radio all the time. You just wind up getting sick of it. (my parents had a Readers Digest set of Cmas records that we played to death and most of the songs were GREAT!!) I would have to say the all time WORST–for me– is the remake by Bachman Turner Overdrive of their own song, Takin Care of Business (takin care of business, everyday, takin care of business, in his sleigh…….. yeah….the original is bad enough, dont bring Santa into your issues! ) Anyway, I wanted to also vent about Christmas carols, because sometimes they do the opposite, instead of feeling festive, you feel more like ripping someone’s face off. It makes me feel like the Grinch, and I just want to find the first person and “stuff the tree up”. hah! There are only so many ways you can mix up the words, Merry Christmas, Im alone for Christmas, I wanna be home for Christmas, What are you getting me for Christmas, I got something for you for Christmas, etc, before it becomes redundant. Love Rook xo
Jan
it’s a tie for me between the little drummer boy…and the christmas shoes ugh…..
Beth K
“Last Christmas”, Wham! I just can’t take it anymore.
Anonymous
I can’t believe that I’m the first to post “Feliz Navidad.” Once I hear that song, I cannot exorcise it from my brain for the rest of the day. sigh. Lynne
Anonymous
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Diana
I really like when kids sing Jingle Bells – but CANNOT take it when kids, even grown ups chop it up with the BATMAN SMELLS version……yuck!
Susan M.
For me its, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” – hands down.
linda j
The muzak version of anything. Especially Winter Wonderland. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard!
Stephanie Scott
Any and all versions of Feliz Navidad make me want to tear my ears off, and gouge my eyes out just for good measure.
Jen LC
worst? anything over-sung by josh groban with so much feeeeeeeeeelings that i want to barf.
GunnyMom
Like fingernails on a chalkboard Jingle Bells done by Barking Dogs. Very irrating and headache making. Favorite- I love Mannheim Steamroller’s Fresh Air Christmas.
Brittney
It’s a tie between 12 days of Christmas and Feliz Navidad….too repetitive!
Wendy R
I like most Christmas carols but the one I find the most annoying is the one where the dogs bark to Jingle Bells. Don’t get me wrong I love dogs, I just cannot stand that song lol. Second would have to be the Chipmonks singing anything….Happy Holidays, Peaches!
Ayshaday
The worst Christmas carol (if you can call it that) is Grandma Got Runover By A Reindeer! I just can’t with that song…then they had the never to make it into a cartoon. Really?!
Ayshaday
Oh…and Christmas in Jamaica by Toni Braxton. What??? Umm – no!
Hook, Line and Sink Her
That “Balls” jumper is AMAZEballs. Worst Christmas Carol for me is “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”. Makes me want to knock the rest of that child’s* teeth out.
xx
*Except we all know it was probably actually recorded by a 53 year old pretending to be a gap-toothed infant.
Danna
“Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?” = worst Christmas song. Thanks to Christian missionaries and The Crusades, I can assure you that they know it is Christmas in Africa. Paternalistic, imperialistic claptrap is what it is.
Kaylin
Eesh that’s hard to pick. I hate “Baby it’s cold outside”. My husband and I call it the “Christmas date rape song” (I know it’s not about that, but still, hey what’s in this drink??)
Aaaand I’m sorry Paul McCartney, but I hate “Simply having a wonderful christmas time”. I only know the chorus so it just stuck on a loop in my head. Like being chased by a swarm of bees, over the river and through the woods…
Joelle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtTY9CTbI7M&feature=kp
No message, not much to the lyrics beyond the title and recorded just to revitalize a failing career (and I am a fan of hers!)
I love the classics for their history, I love the silly stuff (except maybe the dogs, I do agree there) since Christmas is a celebration of joy and childhood, I love most of the spoof songs as long as people don’t try to count them as actual carols (It is like saying that Weird Al is writing his own material – again a fan), but I can’t seem to get beyond the complete lack of substance here. Even those sad carols like the one where the kid is buying his mother shoes are more in keeping with what Christmas is than this drivel.
West Coast Rain
Frosty the Snowman. Hearing it over and over from November to December 26, just leaves me cold and crazy. But, Aunt Peaches, your blog leaves me warm, happy and yes, crazy in good company!
Laurinda
I really despise The Christmas Shoes, especially where he sings that God sent the little boy to remind him off what Christmas is all about. Let’s extrapolate: god is slowly killing off a wife & mother, to remind ONE GUY, who’s not in the Christmas mood while shopping, what the holiday is all about. Nice.
Anna 'Relle
Just to weigh in… I get really riled about ‘Do they know it’s Christmas? (feed the world)’, and I’ll tell you for why:
1. the lyric ‘there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas :(‘ (ok, the sad face is implied there, but it’s THERE all the same, I swear!) Well, of course not. If it snowed there’d probably be a lot of frozen/freezing/dead people around. That’d be tragic.
2. the words ‘the greatest gift they’ll get this year is Life’. You guys. I think that’s the greatest gift anyone will get this year. I mean.
I know it’s supposed to be a sympathy-grabbing song about our social obligations as a global society, but… it really doesn’t do it for me.
Theo Winterwood
My partner and I have a weird love-hate relationship with the Bob Dylan Christmas album . . . I mean, on one hand, it’s so awful. But on the other, it’s SO AMAZINGLY AWFUL.
He makes “Here Comes Santa Claus” sound less like joyful anticipation and more like a threat.
I was going to say that was the worst Christmas song, but now that I’m thinking about it, nope, it’s kinda awesome.
Maybe the worst is “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” because if you’ve ever worked a retail job during the holidays that plays that one (often), you may or may not find yourself subconciously quoting it aloud without even having noticed. You may or may not have suddenly found yourself saying to a wealthy and humorless shopper, “I did! I did see Mommy kissing Santa Claus! And I’m gonna tell my dad!” The shopper may or may not have been Vastly Unamused. (This may or may not have happened. More than once.)
Viktorija
I like to listen to Christmasy songs in the middle of summer, but I’ve always hated Little Drummer Boy.
Ann-Alecia Brewer
I secretly hate Deck the Halls. People look so happy singing it and joyous, but as I smile back I’m really despising it! It’s soooo repetitive…
Joyce
Christmas Shoes.
I guess it’s not really a Christmas carol. But I hate it.
Bella Rose
Christmas Shoes because it depresses me!
Christine Day
Whenever Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey starts to play I feel genuine rage course through me LOL. Not so much of a Carol but a terrible Christmas song nonetheless.
Cayla
Not an actual carol, but “The Twelve Pains of Christmas”–I know it’s supposed to be funny, but my holiday spirit just can’t take it.
Leah
Wow, I can’t really think of any Christmas carols I dislike! Well, maybe The Jingle Cats…*shudder*…
Danielle Villano (A Writer in Love)
I seriously hate The Twelve Days of Christmas. Once you start, you’re sucked into it until the very end. It takes forever. Also, whoever has to sing the “Five Golden Rings” part? They never have a good voice. It’s painful!
😉 (Yes, sometimes it’s me)
Best,
Danielle
http://awriterinlove.blogspot.com
Blaise
Christmas Shoes. It should be illegal to play on the radio, because crying while driving is guaranteed, and that’s just not safe!
Thanks for the giveaway! These look awesome!