Ryan Doesn’t Recommend: “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams

This is NOT a song recommendation. This is an anti-recommendation. I am anti-recommending Christmas songs in general. Yes, here I come at you full bah humbug, but the majority of Christmas songs are truly terrible if you just listen to the lyrics.

“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is about as full of Holiday cheer as Sting’s stalker opus “Every Breath You Take”.

“12 Days of Christmas” is about some poor guy getting a bunch of birds and dancing Russian women.

“Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” is supposed to be comedic, but it really just emphasizes the fact that it takes some kid’s grandma’s trampled corpse to remind him that there actually IS a Santa.

“Winter Wonderland” tells the story of a bunch of children going out into a meadow to build a snowman “and then pretend that he is Parson Brown”… because we can all relate to our own childhood memories of dressing our Snowmen up like the local priests for fun.

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is a song we’ve ASSUMED is just this naive child witnessing his mother kissing his father dressed up in a Santa suit. Yet… that information is never revealed. “Daddy” might actually be working a double shift at the steel mill while “Mommy’s” getting cozy in her living room with a drunk she met at the mall.

Don’t even get me started on the implications of “Baby It’s Cold Outside”.

But the most severe bastardization of Christmas is the song I’m actually anti-recommending: “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” by Andy Williams. This song is written like they assigned the job of writing an iconic Christmas song to a guy who didn’t know what Christmas was, but wrote one that he THINKS Christmas MIGHT be about. First, he turns simple nouns into verbs (like “there’ll be kids jingle-belling” and “much mistle-toeing”). Second, he emphasizes words by repeating them with synonyms (“gay-happy” meetings when friends come to call) and how dumb-stupid and ridiculous-absurd that really is. Finally, this is where you can tell he has no idea what Christmas is with lines like “marshmallows for toasting” and “scary ghosts stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” So, clearly, this guy thinks Christmas is camping. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t have Christmas dinner and then Grandpa turns out all the lights to tell me of the Headless Horseman who stole Christmas.

Whatever the case, don’t listen to this song. If you need Christmas sounds, skip the music and go watch a great Christmas movie like “Die Hard”.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtb3EtjEic(Song recommendation by Ryan Peckinpaugh)