by Lore Sjöberg

Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Also known as "The Extortion Song." Pretty pointless, because asking kids not to pout is like asking free cyanide ions not to react with methemoglobin to form cyanohemoglobin. Here's a hint, kids: Santa is a wuss. Have you ever actually known a kid who got coal in his stocking? Last year even that kid who hit you with the Wiffle bat got a cool RC racer. How do you think he ended up on the "nice" list? Santa brings toys pretty much unilaterally, and all the pouting, shouting and crying in the world won't change that. C-

Silent Night
The thing I like about this song is that if you learned it you probably first learned it without really understanding it. Nobody ever sits you down and says "Okay. Here's what 'tender and mild' means outside of a bowl of chile verde." So you're going along, singing this year after year of your youth, "Roun dyon ver gin, tin der an miiiild" and then one day it hits you. These are words! There's a story here! A very touching story about a round virgin who wants to go to sleep! Kiddie catharsis. B

The Twelve Days of Christmas
Also known as "99 Bottles of Yuletide Beer on the Wall." This song is pure torture. It's a torture to sing, it's a torture to listen to, it's a torture to try and figure out in what context "Lords a-Leaping" are a traditional Christmas gift. My least favorite part is "Five Golden Rings," because by the time you're dealing with the Pipers Piping, everyone's so bored they try and invest the song with a little liveliness by singing the Golden Rings part like a soloing tenor, which just degrades the already degrading experience for everyone. If we must sing this song, I suggest we toss everything from the Swans A-Swimming onward, call it the Six Days of Christmas, and get back to drinking. D

Santa Baby
Oh, please. D-

Jingle Bells
People generally only sing the first verse of this, the one with the bells on bob-tail, and the chorus. This is a pity, as the song has three more verses which deal mostly with falling out of the sleigh and into the snow, with a few sly references to girls. With the additional verses, the song is transformed from a dopey cheer for a form of transportation that doesn't get much use outside of Norway into a sort of Dickensian Cannonball Run. We lose so many of the subtleties in this culture. C+

The Heat Miser Song
This is, without question, the best song to come out of the various animated Christmas specials. Better than "Holly Jolly Christmas," better than the one where the elf wants to be a dentist, even better than that weird-ass song the Whos sang in "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." For those of you who need the refresher, the Heat Miser was this guy who had a brother, the Cold Miser, and they each sang in kind of a rinky-tink showtune way about how hot and cold they were, respectively. It was raucous. Beats hell out of figgy pudding any day of the week. A