What's the absolutely, utterly, teeth-grindingly worst thing about Christmas? The crowds? The traffic? The long queues in supermarkets? The perfume ads all over the telly like a rash? Oh, no. Such trials could be endured - maybe even, with the judicious application of a little seasonal stoicism, enjoyed, were it not for the recurring horror which springs fully-formed from the closet at this time of year, like some baleful, indestructible December insect.
Altogether now, "So here it is, Merry Christmas, Everybody's . . . " and immediately the wretched, tawdry, oh-so-well-worn melody has engraved itself into your brain with the subtlety of a jackhammer hitting concrete, and don't pretend it hasn't. " . . . Having fun . . ." In early November? Because I swear I heard that particular ditty twinkling down at me from the speakers of my local supermarket when I was queuing to pay for a tray of tomatoes and a packet of frozen peas - about six weeks ago. Seasonal, my ass. Or, as another traditional favourite has it, "I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day . . . of November, December, Most of the First Week of January and, if the people who conduct American consumer research surveys are to be believed, large chunks of October as well."
The trouble with traditional Christmas favourites is that they're neither traditional nor anybody's favourite. Musical taste, of course - or, more accurately, the lack of it - is an astonishing thing. Do you ever wonder who buys those spectacularly dull compilations that are regularly advertised on Eurosport? What sort of lives do these people lead, that they'll happily hand over hundreds of hard-earned euros in exchange for Chris Rea: Three Thousand Beautiful Melodies on Eight CDs, or Baroque Bonanza: Every Over-Exposed Piece of 18th-Century Easy Listening You've Ever Wanted (To Smash Into Smithereens). On the other hand, people who will voluntarily watch tractor-pulling on television will probably listen to anything. God only knows what they eat. But let's not get hung up on "good" or "bad".
Instead, let's play a little game; it is the season for it, after all. Let's draw up a quick list of the most common - now, now - Christmas songs. Let's make carols and hymns exempt, even those souped-up arrangements of Hark! The Herald which sound as though they're accompanied by a large furry animal producing rhythmic noises from its armpit - and let's also exempt, even though I vaguely recall attempts in this very newspaper, to have it banned for at least 10 years, Handel's Messiah. And what have we got? Apart from the two mentioned earlier, there's White Christmas; Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; Little Drummer Boy; Do they Know it's Christmas; Rockin' around the Christmas Tree; Sleigh Ride; Winter Wonderland; Let it Snow; Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer; It's the most Wonderful Time of Year; Merry Christmas, Everyone; Santa Claus is Coming to Town; Happy Xmas (War is Over); Fairy Tale of New York; Driving Home for Christmas; It's Gonna be a Cold, Cold Christmas without You.
So there it is: the Christmas musical canon (or should that be "cannon"?) No doubt I've forgotten something vital; no doubt you'll wish to add some personal perennials. But when you see them all laid out like that, you can have a good look at them, which at least is less painful than listening to them.
And what do you see? First, a banal, sentimental and grotesquely inappropriate set of anthems for an out-of-control post-capitalist society. Shoppin' Around The Christmas Tree, Let The Tills Ring Out for Christmas and Rudolf The Red-Faced Visa might fit the bill better. Second, look at the average age of the material. Where's the stuff from last year? Or the year before that? The Christmas record appears to have got severely stuck in the 1980s, a period renowned among those with a keen sense of hearing for its musical malpractices.
But at least in the 1980s we got a new song every year - even if they got more objectionable as the years went by. Now we never get a new song. Instead we get Boyzone or Westlife or, God help us, Celine Dion producing "new" versions of the old songs. And so it goes around again. Getting stuck in its own groove is a phenomenon already associated with classical music - but classical heads are stuck with Beethoven and Mozart, not Slade and Chris Rea. Even Travis singing Why Does It Always Snow On Me would provide a welcome distraction.
. . . Well, maybe not.
Back at the list, the most striking thing of all is its length. At under two dozen songs it's smaller, even, than the mainstream opera repertoire - and I'm sorry, but that's just not enough songs to go around the massively expanding Christmas waistline any more. Take White Christmas. A perfectly good song sung in some style by a perfectly good singer, yes? But in Bing Crosby movies, Christmas began when the tree was put up on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve. It's still a perfectly good song - if you only have to listen to it for two days, or maybe three at a push. Now that Christmas begins on November 4th, it simply won't do. And nor will the others.
So, oh, Father Christmas, if you love us at all, can you please bring us a whole bunch of new, good, ethnically diverse and possibly even mildly amusing songs some time before the end of the century? Because a Christmas song isn't just for Christmas: if past experience is anything to go by, it's for life. Meanwhile, there are still 10 shopping days to go. So if you fondly imagined it to be all almost over for another year, you're mistaken. It's only just begun . . . uh . . . uh, oh.