I’m mystified by this song’s ridiculous popularity; I’m fairly certain that nobody (or at least nobody past the age of seven) actually likes it, yet it’s become the quintessential Christmas standard, even being routinely recorded by legit musical artists on their Christmas albums. Part of this, I suppose, can be attributed to its simplicity…it’s so easy to pick out on the piano that it makes “Chopsticks” look like Franz Liszt, and almost no-one is so tone-deaf that they can’t sing it more or less correctly. But this is exactly what makes the song so unbearable—this is one of the most banal, simplistic melodies in existence, and that, combined with the gratingly cutesy lyrics, makes it a fairly strong contender for the most annoying song of all time. And given the ridiculous levels of overplay this song receives, even by the standards of overexposed Christmas chestnuts, I secretly suspect we could cut down heavily on the specter of seasonal depression just by banning this one song.
Verdict: This would be one of the worst popular songs of all time on a first listen, so you can imagine how bad it is when you’ve been hearing it 200 times a year since you were an infant.