...to think that certain songs just shouldn't be heard at Christmas.

[vienna1981]

For example, the Mariah Carey thing which is just terrible. Then there's that East 17 dirge which isn't even a Christmas song in the first place. No amount of church bells in the final two minutes can make it so. "All Around My Hat" by Steeleye Span is
another oddity. I like the record, even though it sounds like the Wombles on account of the Mike Batt production, but it's not Christmassy by any means (their other hit, "Gaudete ", is).

Best:
Darkness
Fairytale of New York
Mary's boy child
Wizzard
That one by Peter Kay as Geraldine
Driving home for Xmas
Original power of love
Spaceman came travelling
Gaudete
Cheeky Xmas

Worst:
East 17
S club 7
Any supposed Xmas Spice girls or Westlife song
Any warbly Christina or Maria Carey one

Last Christmas-Wham. Lovely George Michael. I was to marry him and have Christmas in that lodge in the snow with him, I really was.

I love the Gary Glitter one along with most of the other 70s / 80s ones.

I can take or leave Mariah Carey.

That awful one from Minder with Dennis Waterman gives me an earworm.

Love John Denver's Silver Bells, you rarely hear it but it's so gentle and lovely. I heartily recommend it - give it a listen if you haven't heard it before. I do NOT recommend his "Daddy don't get drunk this Christmas"

Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby wipes the floor with Kylie Minogues.

Hate the Jackson 5, Girls Aloud and the modern Band Aids.

I love ALL the cheesy Xmas songs. But Mariah's is def in the top 3. It's a classic! Well, the proper ones, not the KKylie, Ronan whiny remakes.

Shakin Steven, Wham, donkey one, drivin home for Xmas. ... love them all.

I also really really love Calypso Christmas songs.

Going back to the OP, where the hell are you hearing 'All around my hat' being played, I've never noticed it being played at Christmas. It's not on Christmas albums, it's not played in shops and I never hear it on the radio.

My 6 year old DS adores the Mariah Carey thing, he's played it about ten times today!

They were playing Banarama's 'Cruel Summer' in Morrisons last week.

i like christmas Wrapping by the waitresses.

About 3 or 4 years ago our local Tesco was playing a very old Christmas compilation CD Must have been old because the Gary Glitter song came on and that dosent get put on compilations now for obvious reasons. I went up to Customer Services and said "Seriously you are going to play this?

They must be short on Xmas cds because all ive heard in there so far this month is the same 90s compilation cd on a loop so we end up with the Spice Girls Aqua Barbie Girl and that Blue song "im blue da da deee da da diii.

Another vote here for Freiheit Keeping the Dream Alive

I also like Winter by Tori Amos.

Ive heard David Essex A Winters Tale in our local Sainsburys.

There is a very horrid song called "Christmas shoes" . It gets tons of airplay in the US, mostly on country stations. The lyrics are vomit inducing. I would rip the lips off anyone I hear singing that damn song.

All I want for Christmas is the best Christmas song!

Particularly because of this work of genius m.youtube.com/watch?v=InYvRyX2Fu4

NoArmani, I was at the Rockefeller tree lighting event in New York last week where Mariah Carey "sang" live and she was dire. Hit a few flat notes, breathing all over the place, terrible swooping across notes and generally awful. She got slated on Twitter and in the press and rightly so.

The travesty which is Ronan Fecking Keating's cover of Fairy tale of New York. No need for it.

sweetest that's the one I was thinking of. She sounded awful

I've always found her far too swoopy and shrill. Over-dramatised 'have I hit the right note yet?' theatrics.

I like my Christmas music folk-inspired.
Therefore at this time of year I listen to Maddie Prior and the Gallery Band, the Christmas Albion Band and especially Kate Rusby.

I saw this tour a couple of years ago and it was magical.

Other than that I love Stop the Cavalry which works perfectly in the WWI Christmas armistice context, and Mariah Carey as long as I'm not forced to listen to the first warbling bit.

DD1 hates Mistletoe and Wine so much that DD2 and I can make her leave a room just by singing the chorus.

Yes, yes and yes again to Fairytale Of New York. I've already heard it at B and Q and Sainsbury's. Does nobody actually listen to it?

'You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last'

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Carols From Kings is the only Christmas music that gets any play in our house

BuskersDog. I haven't heard AAMH so far this end of the year. Maybe later in the week when we're into double figures. I've heard it played at more than one Christmas function. Maybe the DJ didn't like the sound of Gaudete and plumped for the apparent jollity of AAMH, thus fooling people for decades since.

I think Fairytale of New York sums up the Christmas feeling for many families by the end of the festivities.
I actually like it. I know I shouldn't, and I know it's hardly appropriate to have on around the kids, but I still like it.
Even worse is my dhs favourite Christmas song 'proper chrimbo'. He's odder than I in the Christmas song stakes.

Dd(3) is fully embracing xmas songs for the first time this year and is now a fully fledged wombles fan

She didn't think much to the snowman though and her only comment was 'she's not a very good singer is she mummy'!

Sorry Aled 's friend who sings it but no one remembers, including me!

Yeah, maybe mrstiggy . . .

Thinking about it, I don't actually think it's a bad song per se.

I just think that the way it turns up on corporate 'jolly Xmas' instore playlists is annoyingly mindless. Clearly no-one at HQ for these giant chains has bothered to listen to it. Resulting in thousands of people browsing the canned fish aisle while Kirsty McColl calls Shane McGowan a faggot.