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arts entertainmentHolidays

What’s the world’s worst Christmas song?

It's hard to have a holly jolly Christmas when the airwaves are plagued by truly terrible holiday hits.

My wife and I were in the car recently and got to talking about how terrible "I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas" is. Seriously, it grates the ears, and the lyrics are terrible. Did nobody tell this child that hippos are one of Africa's most deadly animals? And stop stumbling over "hippopotamuses" and "rhinoceroses." Just say "hippos" and "rhinos." You're like five years old.

But when I went to Facebook to share what I thought was a completely reasonable opinion that "I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas" is hands down the worst Christmas song of all time, I was met with a lot of feelings from people who have very different opinions on what Christmas songs are terrible.

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For instance, some people hate "Christmas Shoes," originally sung by Christian group NewSong. As one friend put it, "It's like someone said 'Let's take everything sad we can think of and put it in a Christmas song! Then people will remember the true meaning of the holiday!'" Not to mention the fact that the song tends to get extremely overplayed, especially on Christian radio.

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"? Sure, let's just happily sing about how horrified this kid must be at seeing his mother having an affair with a supernatural bearded man.

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Someone else mentioned Band Aid's 1984 song "Do They Know Its Christmas?" Despite being a top seller that's usually recorded for charity (originally inspired by famine in Ethiopia), it's been criticized for what some call condescending lyrics and a failure to understand what Africa is really like.

And what about "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," written by a local Dallas resident but sometimes criticized for being both hokey and grisly at the same time?

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Then there's "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)," which, c'mon, this one just hurts to listen to, especially after multiple listens.

The most common answer? "Baby It's Cold Outside," with the argument being that it's a song about date rape. (Even though it isn't. Feminist outlet Persephone Magazine wrote a defense of the song year's ago, noting that, yes, the line, "Hey, what's in this drink?" is terrifying given the context of modern rape culture and drugs, but we consider the context of the 1940s, when this song was written. "The phrase generally referred to someone saying or doing something they thought they wouldn't in normal circumstances; it's a nod to the idea that alcohol is 'making' them do something unusual. But the joke is almost always that there is nothing in the drink. The drink is the excuse." Still, if you want a more modern, explicitly consenting version, such a thing is available to you now.)

What do you think? What song tops all the rest as the world’s worst holiday classic?