The NC Double Scrooge: Entertainment Division
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on December 10, 2010 – 11:43 AM101 Comments
“How many people do you think Keckler and Bunting offended with this poll? Show us with your hands.”
Today’s poll focuses on all manner of media disappointments: Christmas movies you’ve never really gotten, songs you can’t escape from, the abomination that is fruitcake “fruit,” and what happens when people come to church tipsy.
You won’t see specific songs or Christmas specials here, but fear not, our Grinchy friends. Each of those categories gets its very own poll, and Bunting for one hopes that someone throws the Little Drummer Boy a crunchy beating.
Questions? Skim this. And yes, we will consider write-in votes for “the ‘Philadelphians booing Santa‘ story.”
NC Double Scrooge, Entertainment Division: Please Pick The Three (3) WORST
- The alleged "War On Christmas" annually fabricated by conservatives (19%, 747 Votes)
- Christmas commercials, especially 1) jewelry; 2) red-ribboned cars; 3) Folgers' incestuous "brother comes home" spots; 4) "I can't seem to forget yooooou -- your Windsong stays on my miiiind" (16%, 623 Votes)
- Inescapable Christmas music everywhere -- the deli, the mall, every restaurant and Starbucks, the salon, on hold (13%, 524 Votes)
- Sexxxxy Santas, elves, reindeer, and any other attempt to stripperize the holidays (9%, 363 Votes)
- Articles harassing you about keeping holiday weight off before the holidays even start (8%, 316 Votes)
- Fruitcake, home of the most disgusting fake fruit on earth (4%, 157 Votes)
- Advent calendars that contain shitty chocolate that tastes like the cardboard they're wrapped in (TRADER JOE'S!) (3%, 122 Votes)
- Christmas specials and movies that haven't aged well/are overrated (3%, 108 Votes)
- Exhausted Festivus references (2%, 94 Votes)
- Politically correct children's "winter" pageants (2%, 90 Votes)
- Very Special Holiday Episodes (2%, 89 Votes)
- The holiday weight itself (2%, 87 Votes)
- Explaining your religious practices (or lack of same) ten billion times (2%, 87 Votes)
- Sucky Christmas cookies -- seriously, people, it's not that hard (2%, 75 Votes)
- Gross holiday foods you're supposed to like -- figgy pudding, Christmas pudding, fruitcake -- and the food-mag articles telling you it's time to start liking them, complete with recipes (2%, 73 Votes)
- Garrison Keillor thinking he can sing every damn carol in the -- wait, no, just Garrison Keillor (2%, 61 Votes)
- If Jim Morrison were alive today, he'd hang a Christmas ornament on it and get arrested all over again, NOT THAT ANYONE CARES SHUT UP JIM MORRISON (1%, 48 Votes)
- Holiday candy -- candy canes, ribbon candy, gelt -- and its omnipresence (1%, 47 Votes)
- Gingerbread-flavored everything (1%, 37 Votes)
- Advent calendars that fail to contain chocolate (1%, 35 Votes)
- California OUTLAWING the silver-ball things so you can't even TRY to break your family's teeth (1%, 35 Votes)
- Those little silver-ball things on Christmas cookies that break your teeth (1%, 26 Votes)
- "Creative" children's Christmas pageants -- just stick to the script, folks, it's not hard to find; look on any motel-room side table (1%, 24 Votes)
- The midnight service itself (we've got stockings to stuff; move the shit up to 10:30) (0%, 18 Votes)
- The Nutcracker (...hew) (0%, 16 Votes)
- Keckler and Bunting are as WASPy as actual wasps who live in a hive, so can we please get a ruling on the one true spelling of Chanukah? (0%, 16 Votes)
- Glurg (0%, 15 Votes)
- Caroling parties -- it's cold out, and nobody cares that you went to Juilliard (0%, 15 Votes)
- Amateur-eggnog fail (0%, 10 Votes)
- When baby Jesus screams his head off during the midnight service (0%, 9 Votes)
- Those assholes in the pew behind you who change the lyrics to Christmas hymns and then can't stop laughing at "Hark the Hare-Lipped Angels Sing" (also pronounced "Buntings") (we're jerks) (0%, 8 Votes)
- If you don't know what you're doing, don't attempt the Christmas goose (or at least deactivate the smoke alarms first) (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,350
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Tags: Keckler NC Double Scrooge shut up Jim Morrison winter-holiday agita
@Lori…it’s actually one of the few “classics” that they play. It’s as though they feel they need to throw a classic song in every now and then, and the only one they can think of is “White Christmas”. So it gets played all…the…time. The other one is Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas”, but I still like that one. For now. But yeah, for the most part it’s “updated” versions of already-lame songs, and the beautiful Christmas carols I love are mutilated by runs and arpeggios. It makes me stabby.
Oh, and what the FRAG is up with “My Favorite Things”? How the hell is that a Christmas song?
O.K. — I am a non-specific Wiccan/Goddess Worshiper; my husband is a lazy Jew. We describe ourselves as “Jewican”. We celebrate Hanukkah.
BUT — We do the whole Christmas tree/presents thing because — 1) My parents are lazy Christians, that’s how I was raised 2) I have an 9 year old and 3) We just really like Christmas lights.
AND — My little brother converted to Buddhism as a teen, so Happy Bodhi Day everybody!
Try explaining that around the water cooler.
I gotta get this off my chest and now I have the opportunity. Thanks. I live in Center City, Philadelphia, right near Macy’s. Directly below my apartment (well, below and approximately five feet to the right), there is this guy, or so I assume, who “plays” Christmas pop “classics” on the saxophone. All day. All weekend long. For 12 hours at a stretch. He knows about four songs. When I am not planning my suicide, I have the most violent fantasies toward his saxophone. You know, I would pay him to stop. I would pay him 100 a week to just stop. It’s now Friday night and I can just feel my shoulders starting to tense.
So, uh, Christmas music. Yeah.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
Is Rudolph on that list? Was he called by name? No, he wasn’t. It’s eight tiny reindeer! A-Rudolph-ists unite – Like a Lightbulb!
@LisaD – Nutcrackers are scary-looking, too.
@coffeeweasel: You are so right! Jingle Bell Rock is the slowest, lamest, least-rocking song in existence.
@Meg
I once bought a Godiva advent calendar on a trip to Brussels. It was pricey (I think about $15), but there were knock-down, drag-outs every day about whose turn it was to open the calendar. Maybe they’ve made it to the States?
Christmas songs I hate: The Hall & Oates version of “Jingle Bell Rock” which is the one that gets stuck in my head. That putrid thing that Bryan Adams sings and I refuse to even pretend to know the title because then THAT will get stuck in my head and I will have to give myself a lobotomy. Anything sung by Mariah Carey/Celine Dion/any other “Diva” (except Aretha, who is awesome and can do whatever she damn well pleases).
Songs I love: The Kinks’ “Father Christmas,” Band-Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and the Bing/Bowie “Little Drummer Boy” simply for the WTF-factor of it. :) Everything else can shut right up.
Oh, wait – if you’re looking for a nice twist on your holiday music, try Richard Cheese’s Silent Nightclub, which is beyond awesome.
“Explaining practices” for REALS. I was raised secular, married an ex-Mormon with still-Mormon parents, got baptized into the Episcopal church earlier this year after lots and lots of searching and researching. Result: I get to explain stuff to my parents, my in-laws, AND my husband.
Also, “shut up Jim Morrison” for ALWAYS. Is it just me or does the posthumous pardon reek of a desperate political attempt to “connect with a younger generation” which is, in fact, no longer the sitting younger generation?
Alternately, moving midnight mass to 10:30.
It’s a vigil, it’s supposed to take place at night. No one is forcing anyone to go to it at all, so don’t foul up something meaninful for religious people.
I bought my daughter a Hello Kitty advent calendar this year and six days in she point-blank refused to have anything more to do with it. How shitty must the chocolate be when a three year old turns her nose up at suddenly being allowed to eat it daily?
I wish I could have voted 3 times for The Alleged “War On Christmas” — so very glad to see it’s winning easily!
@Meg We found a Godiva advent calendar once. It was awesome.
Fruitcake: I’m a dried fruit hater, so sadly, there’s not enough booze in the world.
@Lacey: Kind of off-topic, but that reminded me of when I worked at a party store, and once spent a day unpacking box after box of feather boas. I thought the worst part would be that they shed and are kind of itchy, but it turns out they’re also preserved in formaldehyde, so that was fun. (also, a lot of the time people think my name is your name.)
@Amanda: “A Mad Russian’s Christmas” is the best Christmas song of all time. OF ALL TIME.
I work for a provider of music for retail. I’m sorry about the x-mas music starting so early, but that comes from whatever corporate entity wants it.
If it makes you feel any better, we start doing those in late summer. Yeah, that’s fun.
@Cara “Somehow, I’m even annoyed by both sides of the inedible silver ball issue.”
I really sort of love you for this.
I don’t mind Christmas music so much anymore, but right after college I had 2 jobs (one as a server and one in retail) and BOTH played Christmas music the entire month of December. Let me tell you, getting off an 8 hour shift at one only to start a 5 hour shift at the other and hearing the same music (oftentimes the same arrangements of the same song) is a special kind of hell.
The other terrible thing about working in retail during the Holidays was the people who would bitch at me about how “we were ruining this great holiday by pushing merchandise so early”, and how “this isn’t what Christmas is about”. You know what lady? THIS STUFF ISN’T MY CALL. Shockingly enough, I did not wake up one morning and decide to order all this product and put it out. Corporate made the call, and do you know why they decide to put this stuff out in October? Because it sells in October. And because their competitors are doing it. If you want to blame someone, blame the shoppers who make it profitable by buying this stuff, or blame capitalism. Don’t blame the poor worker making $8 who is just trying to make it through the season.
…wow, apparently I have a lot of unresolved issues about working in retail during Christmas.
I saw the Nutcracker when I was a kid and it terrified me—especially the Mouse King. I don’t know if I saw a particularly trippy version of it, or if the sets and costumes are always so freaky-looking, but I spent a majority of the show cowering in my seat. The music is fine, but I never, ever want to see it again as long as I live.
I’m amazed by the hate of Little Drummer Boy. It always makes me think of a card a friend sent one year. Grunge teen sitting at a drum set on the front with words Little Drummer Boy above him. Inside: gruff dad saying “why don’t you get off your rum-pa-pa-pum and get a job?”. Love it.
Apparently I jumped the gun, because my holiday-music-ranting happened in the first thread (didn’t see this coming.)
@Lacey: The store I worked for with the September-to-January Christmas music was a craft store, like Michael’s, but not. I almost forgot about the holiday glitter… you can’t get that stuff off you, not even with a shower, especially that micor-ground crap that gets sprinkled on every ornamment. Trying to get little shards of broken ornaments out of the carpet before somebody sued was super fun too!
I used to hate most Christmas music until meeting my partner. He’s a concert-level pianist himself and introduced me to some great recordings as well. Take the tunes, remove cheesiness/slutty pop stars/elevator/schmaltz, then add someone special: you got Christmas magic. (Bonus points that he has a thing about not playing Christmas tunes much before Thanksgiving Weekend.)
Except The Little Drummer Boy though. What drum on earth ever made a sound like “pah-rum-pah-pum-pum” anyway? Oh, right, the one Mary threw a stable rug over because some kid was playing drums around a newborn.
The holiday music solution I came up with the two years when I was managing a store was to have a playlist of the “Great American Songbook” done by mid-century jazz performers (Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, etc.) although *not* actual Christmas songs until the very last week. It had a sort of “warm and comfy” feeling, and didn’t make us want to kill ourselves.
I really feel for anyone working in a craft store – when I’ve gone there while getting supplies for gift-making, it always looks like a herd of rhinos has gone rampaging through the store, and the clerks always have the look of death on their faces.
Okay, I know the Decorating poll hasn’t gone live yet, but can it PLEASE include the “reindeer antlers” that I’m seeing on car windows around here? Seems like they’re everywhere this year, complete with a red “nose” for the grille of the car. Seriously? You’re turning your car into Rudolph? Some overachievers are even putting Christmas light and stocking magnets on the sides of their cars, to what, make the car be Santa’s sleigh? One of my FB friends has started posting pictures of these in an album called “Christmas Douches.” My only pleasure in these things is thinking of that name every time I see one of these monstrosities.
@patricia: Those reindeer antlers for the car sound insanely stupid, but boy do I wish I was the party who came up with that idea… because stupid sure is profitable this time of year.
Pet rock, anybody?
Most Christmas commercials bite the wax tadpole, but I do love the Corona ad with the lights in the palm tree. It gives me the warm-fuzzies.
@Rachel: I, too, love the Bing/Bowie song. In my mind, Bing Crosby is in the studio with Jareth, the goblin king from Labrynth, complete with his spiky hair and too-tight-for-PG pants. Does a better pairing than that exist?
I guess I’m a minority of a minority here (heh!) but I go for the “Chanukah” spelling … both because it best approximates the Hebrew equivalent in my mind, and because it’s what I grew up with.
Also – A pox on people who try to argue that I’m somehow depriving or traumatizing my son because we have neither tree nor lights. No, it’s NOT only a secular decoration to me, and no I don’t think it will make him “sad” not to be able to have these things. (And no, decorating using only blue and white lights wouldn’t really help – miss the point, much??) Invite us to help decorate *your* tree, or drive around the neighborhoods to see other people’s lights, and we’re totally there with (jingle) bells on. We just have our own holidays, and our own traditions – are you heartbroken that you don’t light a menorah for eight nights??
Related to that: Go away people who think I’m anti-Christian/anti-Christ if I write or type “x-mas”. No, I’m just lazy!
And add me to the list of those who are not happy about being inundated with Christmas music from, it seems, July 4th onward. I like a good Nat King Cole “chestnut” as much as the next person, but I could do without “pah-rum-pah-pum-pum” while I’m still enjoying my Thanksgiving leftovers!!
My true annoyance are the remakes of lovely Christmas songs by pop singers. Unless you are John Denver & you are singing with the Muppets, don’t put your “personal flair” on classic tunes, ‘mkay?
Dear LORD, can we please let GO of the “Philadelphians booing Santa” thing? It happened in Nineteen-Sixty-Frickin’-eight, for the love of little fishes. Look, how about a compromise — it’s clearly too much to ask that repeating this story, AGAIN, be limited to those who were active sportscasters at the time. Can we say that the story is off-limits to any sportscaster who wasn’t ALIVE when said event happened?
Dear LORD, can we please let GO of the “Philadelphians booing Santa” thing?
Nope! Hilarious!
Daaaaaaaaaamn. I had never heard about the Philadelphia fans booing Santa.
And now I know.
Oh man, someone mentioned Xmas up-thread, I can’t believe I forgot about this. I suppose it’s a subset of the Alleged War On Christmas, but still.
Listen, person determinedly handing out hysterical religious leaflets to people stopped at intersections. (Does this happen in other parts of the country? It’s happened to me more than once.) It’s the freakin’ Greek letter chi, not the Latin letter X. Because you can’t spell ΧÏιστός without chi. Learn your own religion’s history before you tell *me* to put the Christ back in Christmas, jeez.
Fruitcake is nasty, but I didn’t vote for it because there’s this Truman Capote story that I vaguely remember from high school about a little boy and his spinster aunt who make fruitcakes every year. It gives fruitcake a slightly better association in my mind than those hideous chemical-bomb green cherries have any right to.
Also, I’m going out on a limb and saying I like non-chocolate advent calendars. I’m not generally anti-chocolate, but you can’t find ones with just cute pictures anymore. I had some as a kid that looked like a bare Christmas tree, and each day you opened had another picture of an ornament. I loved those.
I had to vote for “Festivus” references because some hipster types have created a “Phoenivus” this year. Whatever.
And in annoying holiday commercials, does anyone else hate the Hershey’s commercial scored to a kids’ choir singing “Melt with You”? Ugh.
@leftieh Yes! “A Christmas Memory.” It’s a dear story, and I loved the bit where they went out to pick pecans and couldn’t stop eating them.
Seems like we’d all be ready for any store/radio station/TV ad with the guts to use “The St. Stephen’s Day Murders” as their song. It’s by the Chieftains, on the Bells of Dublin album, and I’ve always found it hilarious.
First person to find me (or make me!) a “Little Drummer Boy Got Run Over By A Reindeer” mash-up gets a free TN flag shirt!
http://tomatonation.spreadshirt.com/
Ohhh, the “Philadelphians boo Santa” story: I know it’s a great example of “Philadelphians are jerks” but regardless of the time of year, hearing it repeated ticks me off. Let me defend my people! The original Santa canceled or whatever, the organizers dragged some drunk out from the stands and stuck him in a suit, he sucked, people got cranky. It’s not like we just all decided to throw snowballs at Old St. Nick because we’re jerks. We had a legitimate reason for being jerky that day.
So I guess my peeve is two-fold:
1) the repetition of this story at Christmas
2) the incorrect repetition at other times of the year, to justify the “Philadelphians suck” stereotype, as if no other city could possibly be as brusque or crime-ridden as us.
Other holiday pet peeve: Maybe I’m not watching the right channels but every year I look forward to watching Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And every year, it feels like the stations shove both shows onto the 8:32 PM timeslot on like, December 1; don’t advertise it; and then that’s it. Meanwhile, the airwaves are clogged with holiday specials that suck. I’ve had to start getting Charlie Brown and Grinch from Netflix just to watch them.
I like most classical Christmas music, and even some of the modern stuff, but…Band-Aid needs to die now. Also “The Christmas Shoes.” Ew and yet more ew.
Also, I can no longer sing the Coventry Carol, at all, because I get to the word “youngling” and crack up. Fuck you, George Lucas.
I see it as more of a “Philadelphia fans are hard-CORE” story, which is why I love it.
@Sars:
“I see it as more of a ‘Philadelphia fans are hard-CORE’ story, which is why I love it.”
Okay, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, Sars. Really, it’s a lesson in not scrimping on Santa actors.
Speaking of music: I’m sort of into the Hallelujah chorus flash mob in the mall food court trend. Even though the Hallelujah is an Easter text and not Christmas.
After reading the comments I am thrilled with “my” radio station because they only start rotating holiday music in after Thanksgiving (at maybe 25 – 50%) and only go all-holiday for 3 or 4 days right before Christmas. Also? It’s a classical music station so there is a LOT to choose from and very little of it is annoying.
Anlyn i’m with you! My Favorite Things has nothing to do with Christmas! She meantions packages in brown paper and snowflakes. That doesn’t add up to Christmas!
Lindsay, you and me both! I HATE the war on Christmas BS with a passion!
And whoever was frightened by the Rat King as a child (can’t find it again) you’re in good company. I went to The Nutcracker yesterday afternoon and a kid two seats down from me got scared of the mice and had to be taken out by his mom! Even my husband leaned over and asked me what was with the rats!
Awwww, A Christmas Memory. It’s on my Xmas (seeeee what I did there?) reading list every year.
Also, kategm, any city that could inspire a show like “It’s Always Sunny” will forever hold place of pride in my heart. :)
I really REALLY like Christmas music and will listen to nothing else non-stop from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas BUT The Christmas Shoes is just wrong. The Christmas season is supposed to be joyful dammit! And also SHUT UP Bruce Springsteen’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Wham win most annoying Xmas song…
British pop group Wham!’s 1984 hit single Last Christmas was voted most annoying Christmas song in a poll in Bulgaria, beating Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas, organisers stated on Monday.A total of 28,110 Bulgarians stated the Wham! hit was….
Ten years of working in mall retail means I will never enjoy christmas music. Alvin and the Chipmunks’ christmas album deserves a very special place in hell.
I go shopping at only one place between thanksgiving and christmas: Target. The one near me has no music AT ALL, much less anyone’s pop version of Sleigh Ride. I hate that song SO MUCH, and WHY does the theme song NFL on Fox have to sound enough like it to get it stuck in my head? WHYYYY?
I like fruitcake, because I grew up with my grandma’s homemade fruitcake, which was nearly dripping with booze. OMGSOGOOD. I make myself one every year because nobody else likes it. It’s rum-soaked cake! What’s not to like?
My vote went to the silver balls. They may be dubiously edible, but I always loved putting them on my gingerbread houses when I was a kid; they were the closest you could get to properly-sized fairy-lights for the gingerbread house (unlike M&Ms or Skittles, which tended to look like the wee gingerbread family had purchased theater lamps to do their exterior decorating with. They were the right size for roofing shingles, though).
I will note that I do have a special place in my cold black heart for the kids’ versions of Christmas songs:
“Hark, the herald angels shout!
Two more days ’till we get out!”
And so on.
I have to confess re: commercials that it’s not Christmas until I see Santa using the head of a Norelco as a sled.