4. The Beach Boys, "Little St. Nick"
Most of the songs on Christmas With the Beach Boys are familiar Christmas songs featuring the band doing vocal impressions of a slide whistle, with a few annoying originals thrown in. While "The Man With All the Toys" comes in at a close second with the hiccup-like noise being made throughout, what makes "Little St. Nick" so bad is that it's essentially "Little Deuce Coup" with the words changed. This isn't a Christmas song; it's just another beach song with words about Santa. Stay on the beach, boys.
Besides all of the terrible things about the song, the Beach Boys do perform somewhat of a public service for all of those people out there who can't seem to remember when Christmas occurs with the repeated, "Christmas comes this time each year." Thanks guys, I'm always forgetting when Christmas is. Now if only there was a song to remind us when the Fourth of July happens.
3. The Carpenters, "Merry Christmas Darling"
In 1970, Richard and Karen Carpenter punished Christmas lovers with this giant, rancid ball of cheese. Possibly the biggest sin of this song is their attempt to turn Christmas into a verb, as in "...in my dreams I'm Christmasing with you." I imagine that Christmasing, regardless of the root, refers to inflicting some sort of torture on an innocent victim.
Eight years after they originally infected the holiday season with this soul-eating bacteria, the dynamic duo updated the song and included it on their two two-disc Christmas album, Christmas Portrait, which is one portrait best kept in the attic with all of the other crap. Luckily the Carpenters' diabolical plan of verb-izing the word 'Christmas' never took hold with the listening public, but sadly the song did. Just hearing it makes me think I might prefer being Christmased to a slow, excruciatingly painful death. Too soon?
