Do you hear what I hear?

At our house this time of year, it’s all Christmas music, all the time. Although we have a huge arsenal of Christmas CDs, ranging from the classics and the classical (Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Handel’s Messiah) to the cheesy (Christmas with the Brady Bunch, of course!), we usually default to listening to the local radio station that plays holiday music around the clock from Thanksgiving to Dec. 26.

It can get really annoying.

This year, they started way before Thanksgiving, so we were pretty much done with it by the time we put the tree up. For six weeks, they play the same continuous loop of songs, over and over and over. At least The Hippopotamus Song seems to have been knocked out of the loop this year. Hallelujah.

But there are still plenty of other offenders, like Wham’s Last Christmas,  Jessica Simpson’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and anything by Air Supply or Aaron Neville.

On a positive note, listening to this music ad nauseum has opened up plenty of interesting dialogue in our household. Once, during the annoying Wham song, Little Miss asked, “He gave her his heart? How could he do that? Did he wrap it up and put it under the tree? And then she gave it away? Why would she give it
away?”

How do you answer that?

It was easier to find an answer the other day while driving in the car and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You was playing and Twin B said, “I don’t get it. How could she not want presents under the tree and instead just want some guy for Christmas?”

I laughed and said, “Someday you’ll understand.” But inside, I was going, “Yes! That’s my girl. She doesn’t get it!” She shouldn’t get it. And I hope she doesn’t get it for another 10 years. No, make that 20 years.

And yet, yesterday when I asked Little Miss what her favorite Christmas song was, she said, “the one where the girl sings all I want for Christmas is you.”

We’re in trouble. Why couldn’t she have just said the super-annoying Chipmunks song, like a normal 4-year-old?

But the song that has opened up the most discussion, at least between BK and me, is Dan Fogelberg’s Same Old Lang Syne, the one about the exes meeting in the grocery store on Christmas Eve.  I used to love that song. Until one day I really listened to the words: “I went to hug her and she spilled her purse, and we laughed until we cried.”

Come on! Would you really laugh until you cried over a spilled purse, especially during the awkwardness and surprise at running into an ex? OK, maybe if something embarrassing like a tampon fell out, but still, unless you’re a sixth-grade boy, even that’s not funny enough to invoke tears.

But then it gets worse: So they drive around looking for a bar, but nothing is open so they go to a liquor store and buy a six-pack and drink it in her car. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, she said she was married to an architect, so isn’t it a little shady that she’s sitting in a car drinking beer with her ex on Christmas Eve? Obviously, she had run out to the grocery store, so doesn’t the architect wonder where she is by now? (Although, she was in the frozen foods section, maybe looking for ice cream or a Lean Cuisine, which doesn’t exactly indicate dinner for two, so maybe there are problems.)

At the end of the song, the beer is gone and their “tongues were tired.” I’m sure I’m taking it too literally, but tired, slack tongues is just a gross image. I mean, have you ever heard anybody say their tongue is tired? But even worse, BK pointed out that after they down the six-pack, they both get in their cars and drive. “In the snow and rain,” added BK. “Drunk. Nice.”

Now I don’t like that song anymore.

That’s not the first song BK has ruined for me. I used to love The Piña Colada song by Rupert Holmes. I always thought it was such a cute and clever story until BK pointed out to me, “Neither one of them is happy in the relationship and they’re totally trying to cheat on each other! What’s cute about that?”

Well, he had a point. But at least they didn’t drive after drinking the piña coladas. And I still think it’s a clever song.

I think for the rest of the season, it’s best if we stick to songs like Carol of the Bells and Linus and Lucy.

No words.

So what holiday songs drive you to drink? You can add your comments by clicking on the little caption bubble by the headline of each post.