Being an embittered Jew, I’ve always despised Christmas. Among the many aspects of the season that make me want to yak (the ceaseless, crass advertising; the rancid family films; the floods of stressed-out, manic people) nothing disgusts me more than the frothy holiday music that comes belching out of speakers in malls, on the radio, and fucking everywhere.

While my loathing of Christmas has always been there, my particular hatred for holiday warhorses began when I was 19 and was hired to work at a toy store around Christmas. I had the vague idea that this job would be fun—the manager said I’d stand by the door and blow bubbles. But that manager was fired on my first day of work and there was no more blowing of bubbles. I learned to gift-wrap quickly after my first failed attempt, when an irate mom grabbed the gift away from me and insisted, “Just give me the wrapping paper! I’ll take it home and do it myself!” It was just a few weeks into the job when all the somewhat annoying, but comparatively soothing children’s music cassettes that we played over the store’s loudspeakers were replaced with Christmas Carols for Children and Raffi’s Christmas Album. While I was being verbally abused by neurotic Beverly Hills moms and dodging their slobbering, snot-nosed children, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Deck the Halls” began to gnaw at my brain like weasely varmints. All the sickly cheerfulness seemed to be mocking me and my pathetic existence as another one of Santa’s wage slaves.

But that was back before Christmas music completely took over the month of December and much of November. Jack-o’-lanterns were just beginning to rot this year when drugstores started hauling out their Yuletide teddy bear sections and inflicting Kenny G’s Faith: A Holiday Album upon innocent shoppers.

However, it’s not just the obvious targets that stink: the drippy holiday elevator Muzak, the poorly aging novelty tunes like “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” the bloated, twanging country versions of “Silver Bells.” The myriad of jazz hipster Christmas albums also suck reindeer dick, from Diana Krall’s overcooked Christmas chestnuts to Nat King Cole’s eternal Yuletide blandness all the way back to Bing Crosby’s earliest wintertime snoozers.

I must admit that I do have affection for songs that skewer Christmas. My favorite is Treacherous Three’s old-school “Santa’s Rap,” wherein a young Kool Moe Dee raps about being “po'” in the ghetto—the fucked-up, hand-me-down GI Joe action figures and a decorated pole that serves as a Christmas tree.

But the most glorious seasonal classic for grinches is Christmas with the Vandals: Oi to the World!, the musical equivalent of the film Bad Santa, which trashes the holiday with spirited glee. This nasty collection of punk-rock immaturity peaks with the suicidal ballad “Hang Myself from the Tree.”

These occasional stabs at the evil Christmas beast are but mere falling trees in distant wood. Christmas reigns over America in December like a gargantuan octopus swallowing a clipper ship. Songs like the moronic “Jingle Bell Rock,” the less-than-funny “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” the intestinal-discomfort-causing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and the Abu Ghraib prison torture theme song “All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)” are like indelible lines in the Constitution. An army of Jews, Muslims, ACLU lawyers, and furious black metalers could never defeat them.

Every holiday season the retail world—as well as radio stations, restaurants, and local city councils—conveniently forget that not everybody in America is a goddamn Christian or a celebrator of Christmas. The whole Santa and elves thing has nothing to do with Jesus, they reason, so it’s kosher to put up gigantic city displays and pump out ghastly Christmas music in public spaces.

Yet there is nearly no mention of Hanukkah, Ramadan, or Kwanzaa, except the occasional, unpopular postage stamp. Not that those holidays and their respective awful music need to be equally represented.

It would just be nice if for once during the holiday season this Jew could walk into a store and not be whacked with giant candy canes by Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, forever intent on forcing their abject jolliness upon the Santa haters.

editor@thestranger.com

80 replies on “Fuck You, Santa—I Hate Christmas Music”

  1. You´re all missing the point here. No one ever went broke underestimating the musical taste of the American Public, H.L. Menken said in so many words.

    The undifferentiated masses have won because THEY ARE THE MAJORITY. It just so happens that the majority also celebrate Xmas and not Hanakkah, Kwanza, or whatever.

    Like the writer, I am also a Jewish Christ-Killer (thank you Adolf:-)
    I accept that we´re outnumbered. But outnumbered in the sense that some of us, regardless of our upbringing have taste and would do almost anything to hear Handel´s Messiah or Bach´s wonderous Christmas Oratorio, or even the Fuckin´Four Seasons instead of the earworms we´re forced to endure.

  3. Waah, waah, waah. Christmas sucks. Well tell us something we don’t already fucking know. This was the same rant I used to sprew out when I was 17 years old and still recovering from years of mind-numbing Catholicism. Now at 40, I accept that this vulgar display of Yuletide gluttony is just part of the western capitalist condition. Consume, consume, consume no matter how un-“Christian”-like you become in the process.

    But cheer up Ebenezer, in due time there’ll be a lot less consuming going around when we’re all a stone throw away from all out economic depression. With any luck, maybe the Yuletide schmaltz will come down a few notches when so many will be forced to focus on more pertinent matters like the recent foreclosure of their home. If war, poverty, and the general brutality of most of this planet will not compel us to give a damn about something more than getting the latest Xbox or ill-fitted clothing from some nameless sweatshop; well then hit us in the pocketbook! $4 per gallon gas sure made some soon-to-be Humvee consumers think twice. Maybe a sizeable reduction in income and benefits will teach us “the true meaning of Christmas” and Santa will leave the building not because we told him to fuck off but rather because there simply was less of a need to have him there at all.

  5. I’m an atheist and I like xmas music – makes me happy. Especially the old stuff – really stirs something up from my childhood.

    I think this entire article is completely contrived. Like people who are “afraid” of clowns. I call bullshit.

    If not a hoax, then I’m sorry you’re a gigantic, intolerant, self-important asshole, Adam. And sorry for your family, too.

  6. this is horrible. it is people like Mr. Bregman who make the holidays hell for everyone. No matter what your denomination, or lack thereof, the winter holiday season is not only about religion. While 75% or more of Americans are Christian or similar denominations, people know that not everyone is. Unfortunately, the advertising business was created as a revenue catalyst and targets the majority. Short of a constitutional amendment, there is nothing that can be done to prevent people shoving holiday cheer down your throat. My advice is to just suck it up and deal with it. Just because you don’t like the overabundance of holiday music, food and spirit does not give you the right to shit down everyone else’s chimney, so to speak. I am a journalist as well and I more than understand getting your opinion out there, but I think that the level of professional decorum expected doesn’t involve talking about reindeer dick.

  7. I’m agnostic and I hate Xmas Muzak and all the commercialism that goes with it.
    IF I were a Christian, I think I’d truly abhor what has been done to what was once a religious festival. (But some Christians of earlier eras, such as pre-Revolutionary America, banned the celebration of Xmas. Maybe they had some premonition of what a crass commercial farce it might turn out to be.)
    Here’s why I have no issue with Easter:
    1.It’s not a “season”. It’s a weekend.
    Sure, some Christians do Lent which is over a month but they tend to be quiet about it. And Lent, giving up something, is anti-commercial.
    2. Easter is still, at least for adults, a religious holiday. The adults who celebrate it tend to be Christian and in general have a clue as to what the holiday’s about.
    3. No Frigging Easter Carols/MUZAK!!

    When someone wishes me “merry xmas” I say “happy solstice.” If after solstice, I say “happy new year.”

    When someone asks me if I’m “ready for Xmas” I say that I’m not Christian so I don’t celebrate Xmas. It’s so fun to see their reaction since most people either don’t associate Xmas with Christianity OR (I hope this isn’t the case) they have trouble realizing that there are non-Christians in the world.

    Xmas Muzak is the most annoying aspect of this Commercial Insanity. But I really don’t like it when IN NOV., someone “compliments” me on my “Xmas sweater” because it happens to be red. Why is red red most of the year, but in Nov. and Dec., it suddenly becomes “Christmasy”?? Vomit!!

  8. While I can sympathize your annoyance, I personally believe are taking it too seriously.

    Christmas comes around one time a year. Grab an ipod and go about your time free from the music.

    I don’t like obnoxious kids but I am forced to deal with them in public 365 days a year. I think you can survive a few weeks of Santa and his music during the Christmas season. 🙂

  10. And the absolute worse are the sellout Jews cranking out xmas albums: Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond.

    I complained about having to sing xmas carols in school when I was there in the un-pc 70s when they were allowed to be religious; I complain about my kids having to sing them now, when they’re not supposed to be but are.

    And yeah, I would like to be able to buy my damned groceries w/o listening to the damned bells. That’s on the loudspeaker or (really sharpen your knives for me now) in the hands of the salvation army too.

  11. everything I want to write would be flagged for indecency, so I will just say that you are a boob and must have had absolutely nothing else to write. Instead, why not focus on the hundreds of women and children your countrymen are killing in Gaza? Surely that is a more important topic. But I know, it must be hard. It must be hard being a Jew in Beverly Hills.

  12. Is this what it’s like to be born with a silver spoon up your ass? Maybe you’d like the world of iheartpalestine better – rockets not santa down the chimney.

  13. I was in a retail store yesterday and they were still playing Christmas music! On January 3rd! Now, that’s just not playing fair.

  15. Actually, the 12th day of Christmas was just yesterday on the 6th, so I’m actually impressed that someplace was “up” on things enough to celebrate through Epiphany. My sister works for Starbucks, and their Muzak thing was PROGRAMMED to switch off the holiday music on the 26th. Scary.

  16. I agree with you to an extent. Im a catholic and while I do enjoy the christmas lights (despite the fact that they must murder the fuck out of our energy), the seasonal coffees/deserts, and of course the gifts; I fucking hate the music. My hatred began when I started working at a Vons (Safeway) Starbucks. The music began to saw in into my brain. First softly, then violently leading me to give dickheads decaf coffee and a little bit of other nasties in their drinks. There is a hidden mood that exists during christmas season. I recognized this especially during my work at starbuck. But you see it in all the department stores. Anyone who works retail can tell you how big of assholes people are during the season. What I say is that music in stores should be entirely instrumental. I love christmas music and the mood it brings without the lyrics. I find comedies and “punk rock” covers of christmas music just as cheesy and lame as the regular.

    P.S. Treat your baristas nicely. Your next one might be me.

  17. Nonchrist/non-xmas xmas songs that keep some of us sane after been submerged in Bing/Manilow/Connick Jr land:

    Save Ferris’s cover of the Waitresses’ Xmas Wrapping is good for two listenings.
    Adam Sandler’s Santa I’ve been a bad boy & the 3 Channukah songs.
    Vandals. Bears repeating: VANDALS. Sugarplum fairie rock out comes to mind.
    Matt and Trey / South Park Xmas. (Isaac Hayes singing ‘what the hell child is this.’ FTW: “He’s whiiite, so he cannot be minnnne.” Close second: Kenny & Mr Hankie’s song “You can suck all the dick you want, and still be a Virgin, …Mary.”)
    Charlie Brown special: Mr. Schultz had xmas angst DOWN before anyone else.

    Yeah, yeah it’s immature and pure fantasy. But so is [thinking that Jesus’ mom wasn’t hiding an affair from Joesph?] shopping and hoping to be able to buy happiness. We all get our cheer from different sources. Prefer to concentrate on that fact, rather than all the things I could list under “dislike”.

    @16: you cannot simultaneously make an argument against the commercialization/excess of Xmas AND complain there aren’t enough jewish greeting cards (taking up space, for sale, using up trees), at the same time. Pick a cause and LIVE it.
    Supply and demand rules though: so long as suckers keep buying stuff, retailers will keep pumping the xmas pump harder and earlier & earlier in the year.
    @6: seems that way in regards to comedy, sometimes, doesn’t it? Guess jews have more to laugh it. The christians inadvertantly provide SO much material…

  18. You are 1% of the countries population. If everyone catered to every 1%’s needs there wouldnt be anything left. STFU and quit whining.

    This is the most cliche thing you could have possibly written. I feel like your must have wrote it on purpose just to get a rise.

    Go back to Egypt if you dont want to hear christmas music.

  19. Bring us the dessicated heads of Burl Ives and Bing Crosby on pikes so we can scare the not-so-innocent little kiddies at Halloween into being good little angels with twisted tinsel mayhem.

    No, wait, there’s a better way.

    Adam, would you be offended if we exhumed seven more of these ancient crooners so we could stick all their heads on a menorah instead of pikes? Or would the commercialness of the hanukkah horror be too much schtick and not enough carrot?

    Some of us believe in a cruel Santa that gives everyone what they deserve, not what they want.

    Merry Christmas, Adam. Christmas music hates you back.

  20. I hate Christmas. Went to a cowboy nativity play last night, and heard the Archangel Gabriel with his “magic guns” tell Mary that she’s going to be pregnant…implication was a forced spiritual rape.

    I hate Christmas. Joseph in the play threatened to kill his teacher a month ago…

    I hate Christmas. Gross consumerism – and we’re broke.

    I hate Christmas. The worst s-o-bs that I have ever known loudly proclaimed their Christianity. I live in East Texas.

    Nuff said.

  21. I hate jews and catholics and christians and mormons and every other fucking dumb ass religion. i wouldnt celebrate christmas if it wasnt for my parents and girlfriend. Jesus wasnt born on christmas, christmas is just some bullshit that that followers of jesus made up to convert pegans from their winter solsitce. religions based on jesus are a complete scam. the bible starts with 2 people but for pagans the world ends with 2 people. the bible is just a sequal to the pegan religion. I though of making a new religion like the people who wrote the bible did so we can make it a trilogy. anyway back to christmas, its so fucking commercialized it makes me want to puke. the poor get poorer just to please their children on christmas day. religion and religious holidays piss me off just as much as obama and is “democratic” ideas cough socialism cough cough.

  22. It wouldn’t be so bad if the onslaught of Christmas music only occurred over two or three days. When grocery stores play all Christmas all the time for a full month, the “Christmas comes but once a year” argument wears a little thin.

    Also, religion has very little to do with it. Personally, as a Jewish atheist, I find the traditional carols a lot less annoying than Rudolph and Deck the Halls. Also, I’ve taken to expressing my sympathy to the people working behind the counters, who have to listen to these songs all day. They tell me the songs drive them crazy. I don’t ask them about their beliefs, but it’s likely that at least some of them are Christian.

  23. Haha, okay, I kind of understand how that can be frustrating, and if I hated Christmas music or Christmas in general and had listen to it everywhere I went, it would probably drive me mad as well. There are a lot of annoying things about Christmas because it’s so commercialized. To me, the season of Christmas no longer is really related to the religious celebration of Christmas. Truth is, Christmas isn’t supposed to be about material items or Santa or Rudolph for that matter! So perhaps you can keep that in mind when bashing the Christian religion in general in regards to Christmas…because there are a good amount of Christians out there who feel the same way about the commercialization of what’s supposed to be a much more selfless holiday. Oh well.
    Oh and by the way, I work at Starbucks and they keep playing the same CDs over and over again. Haha. I’m grateful for my abundance of patience otherwise I might be writing a similar blog. 🙂

  25. There are a lot of good “Winter/snow songs” that shouldn’t be played to death with the Christmas propoganda, while grass is still Green and no snow on the Ground
    ( I’m north of the 49th and we get winter almost 6 months of the year)… Does anyone out there know of any Radio Stations that are “non-Christmas friendly”?

  26. I am wiccan and I just once want some one to tell me Merry yule! I work retail all I hear is merry christmas….I am not christian so I dont celebrate CHRISTmas.

  27. dont celebrate shitmas. and i hate the shitty music played in december all the dumbass lights “OOH LOOK AT THESE ELECTRIC THINGS THAT LIGHT UP”. not to mention the shitty experiance

  28. I agree – Mazel Tov! This Jew hates Christmas soo much that I can’t watch tv or enter a store. The news is filled with the shit, now its the internet ads – I can’t escape. Ya know, I get my family fill at thanksgiving – but christmas..shut the fuck up! I’m not an angry or bitter jew. I never wanted to be part of that nonsense growing up – I envy no christmas loving asshole. I feel sorry for them and they’re stupid sweaters. I hate most holidays because they’re bullshit – its all a guilt trip. Jews wjo hang Christmas decorations are scary, I stay away from them.

  29. Well now. how can you justify the money made by non-christians every year at Christmas time? lots of jews, muslims, wiccans, athiests or whatever other drivel exists out there rake in most of their business income during this time of the year. Would you be willing not to make huge profits or are you going to shut up and endure it for the time being? quit being such a load of hypocrites… all of you!!!

  30. Good call! All this consumerist idiocy is sickening. We will slowly chip away at this, year by year. Change the traditions and refuse to participate!!!

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