Christmas Songs I Don't Like, part two

Two days ago I wrote about the Christmas song that I hate the most, "The Little Drummer Boy." At the time I said that if I had to create a list of my top 10 hated songs that I didn't know what they would be. Not anymore. I sat down for a few minutes yesterday and made a quick list of my 10 most hated songs, and now I can share them with you, one post at a time.

Lucky you.

So "Little Drummer Boy" is my MOST hated Christmas song. And coming in at number two is...

 ..."The 12 Days of Christmas."

There is so much about this song that I honestly don't know where to begin. In fact, as I was working out in my head what this post would look like, I quickly realized there were a handful of different angles from which I could attack this song, so many that I wasn't really sure how I should do it. So finally I just thought, to heck with it! I'll mention them all.

Angle One: The Repetitious Angle
One of the things that bothers me about this song is how completely repetitious it is to sing the song. It goes on WAY too long. In fact, though I know what all 12 of the gifts in the song are, I can never clearly keep straight what order the gifts are in once you get past all of the birds. After seven swans a swimming, I start to think, "Okay, is it eight Lords a Leaping? Or is it eight Maids a Milking? Where do the drumming drummers fit in? What about the dancing ladies?" I think I can't keep these straight because by this point in the song I've usually given up, so I don't hear this part of the song as often.

Angle Two: All of the Irritating Variations on the Song
Even if "The 12 Days of Christmas" were a GREAT song, it would still make my list of most hated songs if for no other reason than that it has inspired some really irritating variations. The Muppets have a version that get played every year, as do Bob and Doug McKenzie. Jeff Foxworthy had NO business making a "12 Redneck Days of Christmas" record, and there are plenty of other examples. I will make one notable exception here, though: I think "The 12 Pains of Christmas" is funny, as long as I only hear it once a season.


Angle Three: The Impracticality of the Gifts
Another thing about the song that bothers me is the impracticality of the gifts. And it always leaves me with questions about some of the gifts. For instance, take the six geese a laying: how did the gift giver manage to time the giving of the gift to coincide with the laying of the eggs? Because the geese can't have laid the eggs BEFORE the gift was given. Otherwise, they'd be the "Six Geese a Sitting on their Eggs."

Another example: The maids a milking (Sorry, as I mentioned above, I forget what number they are). My question is what exactly is the gift here? The lyrics say it's the MAIDS, not the cows or the milk. But does the receiver at least get to keep the milk, too? And what happens to the cows AFTER the maids have milked them? Is the receiver responsible for getting them back to their original owner?

Oh, and the Maids a Milking lead me to my next angle...

Angle Four: The Creepy Progression of the Song
Has anyone else ever been bothered by the creepy way that the song progresses? It starts off innocently enough, with the speaker receiving a partridge in a pear tree. That's a pretty weird gift, I'll admit, like nothing I've ever been given, but I guess it's understandable. Maybe there's some inside joke or meaning between the giver and the receiver that we're all just not getting there.

But very quickly, however, the gifts get more ominous. Move past the ever increasing number of birds that the receiver is getting--which is odd in its own right--and you start to see that, for the last half of the song the receiver is being given actual human beings! And lots of them! Regardless of what order they're in, when all is said and done FIFTY human beings are being transacted in this song. I think it becomes pretty obvious who the receiver of these gifts is: A slave trader who loves birds!