(A duck. A fox. A donkey. It must be Christmas!)
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Earth. Christmas 2013. A full year has now passed since the Mayan Apocalypse didn’t happen, possibly due to the fact that their calendar was a rock. Or maybe the Mayans got a last-minute health care exemption.

So we’re still here. But, from the Milky Way’s perspective, was it worth it? Let’s review.

In America, shoppers are stabbing each other over who gets the Dollar Store’s only remaining Peace Sign necklace. In China, acres of acne-aged Asians are hacking the Pentagon and hocking iPhone knockoffs. In Iran, government-backed fanatics are spinning up nuclear weapons like under-quota used car salesmen at month’s end. And North Korea’s Kim du jour just had his adored Dennis Rodman declared an official People’s Short Person.

Madness. And what’s headlining in the US news media?

• A ditzy news-show talking head who joked that Jesus and Santa are white people
• A self-described “redneck” duck hunter from the Louisiana backwoods who … now hang on to something … doesn’t condone homosexuality

Good grief. How low can we go? Next thing you know, we’ll be fixating on the First Lady’s bangs or something. So let’s move to a more edifying topic, one that can actually be of some benefit to you and your family:

Bad Christmas Songs!

Following is a list of some real corkers. I lined them up in no particular order, and I won’t deign to judge which is the worst, or the least worst. However, in the interest of good, clean research, it’s worth noting that one song is not included – “The Christmas Shoes” – a Please Make It Stop! ditty so overwhelmingly merciless that I wrote an entire column just about it.

Some of these songs I’ve known all my life, some I’d never heard of before doing some internet research on “stupid Christmas songs,” thanks to Al Gore’s wonderful invention (hair gel).

Let’s begin.

Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas

Last year I was seven. Now I’m nearly eight, as you can see.
You came home, half past eleven, and fell down underneath the Christmas tree.

We don’t know what was going on in John Denver’s life when he unleashed this merry little number in 1973, but we can’t help but notice the 1974 release of “I Saw Mommy Suing Santa Claus For Irreconcilable Differences.”

It’s Christmas Every Day

As far as we can tell, this holiday video from England is about a wannabe musician trying to get a producer to listen to his demo tape. Along the way, there’s an exploding turkey. There are twins wearing tinsel boas. And the wannabe gets electrocuted by his guitar. So it ends well.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

This was frightening. It was JonBenet Ramsey in black & white, but with some weird zoo animal fetish.

1953. The Ed Sullivan Show. A rabidly-coached ten-year-old named Gayla Peevey performed this tightly-staged number about a young girl who would be satisfied with nothing but an aggressive, two-ton African water horse.

The Sullivan show’s set was a front porch; the skit’s extras were two pre-puberty Stepford Wives who never said a word during the entire song – they just sat on the steps and jacked their heads back and forth, keeping time during disturbing lyrics like this:

There’s lots of room for him in our two-car garage
I’ll feed him there and wash his hair and give him a massage

Of course, in the 50s, child protection services were a bit more lenient about little girls who wanted to rub down vicious aquatic mammals.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

This well-known favorite is mostly harmless. But responsible clergy can’t ignore this lyric:

In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is Parson Brown.

I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m guessing your wedding may not be legally binding if the vows were exchanged in front of a guy who’s melting. Either way, it can’t be good luck if the ceremony’s pastor is related to the reception’s ice sculpture.

Minnie and Santa

From her feral, fetchingly-titled holiday album “Merry Christmas…Have a Nice Life” Cyndi Lauper gifts us a bawdy melody about a wiggly tramp who has the hots for Santa. I’ll spare you the details, but Minnie even manages to make milk and cookies filthy.

Christmas Is Coming

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat

We’re not sure where this song came from…even Wikipedia is too embarrassed to discuss this one. But it obviously originated during a particularly low point in England’s history, a time when men’s fashion was directly impacted by obese geese.

It gets worse.

Christmas is coming, the egg is in the nog
Please give a friendly man a friendly dog

“The egg is in the nog.” Please. Man, the things those Anglo-Saxons wouldn’t do to rhyme a couplet.

Misty

Eclectic British singer Kate Bush wakes up on a winter night to find a snowman in her bed.

As one might.

Kate asks him to leave.

Eventually.

Frosty the Snowman

And speaking of smiling snowmen, there’s this perennial about a snowman who becomes animated, though not in a way that would make Kate Bush dust and vacuum.

To be honest, it’s an okay tune. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the song…it’s the song’s delivery system that’s potentially a problem. When Frosty gets lobbed at us by Burl Ives, what’s wanted next is an intervention. Burl Ives at Christmas is an unusually cruel thing to do to a person. It should be banned outright, by international treaty if necessary, and I think all reasonable governments would agree.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

This allegorical argument for mandatory family planning was originally performed by a couple called Elmo & Patsy.

We should’ve known to run when we saw “Elmo & Patsy.”

Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto

A collaboration by Snoop Doggy Dogg, Nate Dogg, Diz Dillinger, Bad Azz, Tray Dee, and Bing Crosby.

I’m joking, of course. Bing thinks Bad Azz is chanky.

On the first day of Christmas, my homeboy gave to me
A sack of the crazy glue and told me to smoke it up slowly

Yeah, I know. That lyric required a collaboration.

We probably don’t want to be in the room when the nine ladies dancing arrive.

Christmas at K-Mart

The mood ring counter is all aglow.

Here’s what you need to know: that’s the song’s best line.

Dominic the Christmas Donkey

Okay, I lied. I did save the worst for last.

Dominic the Christmas Donkey is an audio aberration first thrust upon our species in 1960 by a guy named Lou Monte.

I don’t really trust myself to discuss this song. Whenever it ambushes me on the radio, I have a reaction very similar to Hannibal Lector with low blood sugar.

But after doing some more research in Al Gore’s hair gel, I began to see a pattern. Maybe Mr. Monte couldn’t help himself. I mean, it didn’t stop with Dominic. Look at what else the guy wrote:

Pepino the Italian Mouse
Pasqual the Italian Pussy-Cat
Paulucci the Italian Parrot
Paul Revere’s Horse (Ba-Cha-Ca-Loop)

So, in the spirit of the season, let’s all just settle down. Let’s not worry about whether Santa is white, particularly in light of the fact that Santa doesn’t exist. And let’s not worry about whether a camo-clad bearded guy in a duck blind owns a copy of Brokeback Mountain. We’re all part of one big humanity stew. We’ve more in common with each other than we sometimes see.

After all…who knew Paul Revere was a Sicilian!