Top Five Worst Christmas Songs

Well, it’s that time of the year again.  Time for turkeys, hams, snow, shopping madness (I’ll save that one for another post), decorating trees, and Christmas music.  Now, I love the holidays!  I have always loved Thanksgiving, not only because of turkey dinner, although this makes up about 98% of my enjoyment of Thanksgiving, but also because of football, a day off from school/work, and I’ve always liked the story of the first Thanksgiving.  I like Christmas, too, because as a kid, I loved playing outside in the snow, visiting my grandparents, going to church, making Christmas cookies, and exchanging gifts.

I don’t get into the “Christmas spirit” in September, when stores start putting out their merchandise.  I actually saw Christmas decorations for sale in August this year.  Gross.  Christmas is in December, not in August; we have several intermittent holidays before Christmas (Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Halloween, and others).  We don’t need bad Christmas music for the months leading up to December 25^th.

We used to sing Christmas songs at school, back in those days, but they were Christmas songs.  You know, White Christmas, O Come, All Ye Faithful, Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, Jingle Bells, songs like that.  But somehow, these aren’t the songs that are popular on the radio.

That’s where I start getting pretty upset.  I can stomach some pop music, but pop Christmas music has created its own tradition of being awful, intolerable, and brings out the absolute worst in musicianship, where otherwise great musicians and singers feel compelled to perform at their lowest level.

You must think I am Ebenezer Scrooge.  Well, take this: BAH HUMBUG ON BAD CHRISTMAS MUSIC!

So, I have compiled a list of the Top 5 Worst Christmas Songs:

#1 Wonderful Christmastime (Paul McCartney)

I really, truly, honestly, and fully do not like this song.  I get sick in the mouth every time I hear it come on the radio, with its smooth synthesizer introduction (whump, WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW whump, WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW), its processed voice tracks, and its horribly annoying melody.  Please, Paul, you were so good when you were a Beatle, help me understand what happened!  Was this just a bad experiment, or did you actually think that this would be a good song?  I would (simply) prefer that we just throw this one out in the snow.

#2 Santa Baby (anybody)

Oh, no, please don’t play this song ever again!  Can you believe that people have actually had to suffer through this ditty for almost 60 years?  This is such a diversion from the true, religious nature of Christmas that I can’t even comment.  Bad jazz, bad pop, bad country, this song is just plain awful no matter how you spin it.

#3 I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (Jackson Five)

Did you know that this song was originally condemned by the Catholic Church in Boston?  Even though the ban was short-lived, it goes to show that from the beginning, this song was recognized as a flop.  I personally condemn the version by the Jackson Five because it is the most obnoxious.

#4 Baby It's Cold Outside (all versions)

It’s cold outside, so why not stay indoors and sing about it?  No, how about a cup of eggnog instead- that will keep you busy from spouting out this conversational drivel.  It’s worse when the duet can’t function in harmony, and as yet I have not heard a recording of anyone who can.

#5 (tie) It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Andy Williams)

While it may be the most wonderful time of the year, this is definitely not the most wonderful song to sing.  The harmonies attempt to be creative by using deceptive cadences, but they sound really cheesy.  The intro that tries to sound like church bells sounds almost as ridiculous as the synthesizers in Wonderful Christmastime (see above).  What bothers me the most, though, are this song’s lyrics.  “Marshmallows for toasting?”  That’s for camping, which is in the summer time.  “Scary ghost stories?”  That’s for Halloween, which is in October.

#5 (tie) Carol of the Bells (supposedly a Polish folk song)

I’m guessing that this just might be the most-spoofed Christmas song out there, probably because it’s pretty easy to find four syllables to fit into the repeating four notes that are supposed to sound like bells.  I’ll admit, there was a time when I did like this song, but it’s played so often in TV commercials that even the original version grates on my nerves.

Joint Crackers

I've found an amazing new website devoted to one of my subconscious pastimes: cracking my joints.  There are a ton of forums for popping knuckles, toes, backs, necks, and weird joints like hips, knees, jaws, and sternums.  Check it out:

Joint Crackers

23. Laughter is the best medicine.

Travel Tips - Chicago O'Hare Airport

Travel Tips - Chicago O'Hare Airport

On a recent business trip, I had the opportunity to explore the Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD) on a four-hour layover and I would like to share a few of my discoveries and tips.  First of all, the airport is huge!  I didn't get the chance to check out all of the terminals and concourses on my visit, but I did explore G, K, and L a bit as I was wandering about, waiting for my flight.

Tip #1 – Make sure your phone and laptop are charged before you arrive at the airport.  My phone was down to 6% before I finally found a charging station near the Starbucks by the security area (I think it is Terminal 3).  Electrical outlets are few and far between and the ones that I did find either didn't work (worn out, no juice, etc.) or were in use.

Tip #2 – Eat at Wolfgang Puck's.  I ordered the turkey melt and I was very impressed.  They put thyme on the French fries, which was pretty neat.

Tip #3 – Use the family/companion restroom.  It is clean and they have this neat automatic plastic toilet seat cover that changes when you wave your hand.  It’s also in a quiet part of the airport so you don’t need to feel hurried/rushed if you have to change clothes, wash up, etc.

See also:
Five Things I Love about Omahaians
O'Hare International Airport

22. Hang up and drive.

21. "Excuse me" is much better than "huh?"

I Survived a Swollen Uvula and the Perils of a Hay Fever Sufferer

I did it.  I survived a swollen uvula!  It was an ordeal, a trial, a time that tried a man's soul, but I resolved perseverance and pulled through to the end.

When I first moved to Denver from back in the Midwest, I could definitely tell that the altitude had something to do with the way I was feeling.  I would have to pause half-way up a flight of stairs to catch my breath and wait for my heart to slow down.  That lasted about a week before I became acclimated.  Oh, did I sleep well those first weeks in the Mile High City or what!  I also made sure to keep a bottle of water with me because I got dehydrated very easily (the climate in Denver is actually like a desert, a far cry from the humid summer days back home).  This was all and well and I found myself enjoying the adjustment to my new surroundings: wake up around 7:00 (that's very late for me), go about my daily work, squeeze in a walk, dinner, watch the news, in bed by 9:00.  I even got adventurous in my explorations and tried a couple of hiking trails in the afternoons or after dinner.  That was fun because I got to learn the birds and wildflowers of the Colorado high plains that way; this was all before I started exploring the mountains, but that is a whole other subject.

Anyways, I liked my new city and was getting used to life 5280 feet above sea level.  Then, one day it hit me in late August.  I woke up one morning and felt a huge gob in my throat.  Now, I grew up suffering terrible hay fever every August.  Around the 15th of the month, I would get that first tickle in my nose, which turned into a sneeze, and then my eyes would tear up and burn, my ears clog, my nose incessantly drip and run and itch, I would sneeze more than I could talk, and I was utterly miserable for at least two weeks.  Growing up, I tried every hay fever and allergy medicine that they made.  Seldane, Benadryl, Claritin and Allegra (back when they were prescription), Clarinex, Zyrtec, and Sudafed.  I tried nasal sprays, eye drops, herbal teas, and homeopathic tinctures.  I tried chiropractic.  I tried Chinese medicine.  One medication would work for one year, then the next year it was ineffective and I was on to the next method.  I grew desperate and would try anything whenever August rolled around.

O God, why didst Thou create ragweed?

So, when I felt that lump of goo in my throat, I thought to myself, "Oh, great, allergies!"  At least hay fever is a known quantity: I knew life was going to suck for a few weeks and more or less how I could survive: patience, a few good books (the Bible), a lot of prayer, and whatever new remedy I could find that year.  I went about my morning routine, made a pot of coffee, and tried to hawk up the ball of phlegm that was in my throat, but I couldn't get it out.  I squeezed and contorted my throat and made all kinds of funny noises trying to get that loogie out, but it wouldn't budge.  I decided to go into the bathroom to see what was going on and looked in the mirror.

To my shock, my uvula (the hanging thing in the back of your throat) was swollen to the size of my thumb and throbbing red and laying on the back of my tongue and tickling it.  I would see how I thought that it was a loogie.  That was not my concern, though.  I saw it and thought to myself, "How did it get so big?"  I could have bitten it with my back molars if I wanted to.

Apparently, a swollen uvula is caused by several things, one of which is dehydration.  I spent an hour reading all that I could find on the subject on the internet before I figured out how I was going to tackle it.  The recommendation was drinking a lot of ice-cold water and gargling with salt water.  I did this for three days and it went back to normal.  I never did get allergies that year, nor any other year since moving to Denver.  No hay fever for me!

So, the remedy that worked best for my swollen uvula was a salt water gargle twice per day and plenty of cold water.  And try not to yawn in public- it draws too many questions about your uvula!  If only curing hay fever were that easy...

http://www.swollenuvula.org/
http://www.swollenuvula.net/