The top 5 best Christmas songs you'll eve find, so give up looking you fools

Christmas is the season of perpetual hope endless, hopeless advertizing, and nothing advertizes as well as a catchy tune. Most Christmas songs are unique. Unlike Klondike (heh) bar jingles, all Christmas songs have to do is advertise Christmas, and the human psyche takes care of the rest.

Unlike most jingles, though, Christmas songs tend to be at least tolerable. But what are the absolute best? Well search no more because I have the top 5 tunes of the season, in no particular order. If you try to rank these I will end you.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (Jackson 5 version ONLY!!!): The funny thing is that this song tends to suck, especially the nightmare-inducing John Mellencamp version. But the Jackson 5 hit the right note (hyuck) when they took it on, and not only is it the definitive version, but it's also a pretty fucking great song in general.

What about the song in general? The song tells of a horrible misunderstanding one Christmas Eve, when an impressionable youth witnesses his mother being ravished by Kris Kringle himself. At the time, the youth thinks that adultery is funny, but later on, when he understands what happened that terrible night, he will probably snap and hunt down his mother like the dog she is. Only then, though, will he realize what really happened that night: that Santa Claus is in fact his dad! It's like Shakespeare or some shit. Except instead of everyone dying and Fortrinbras becoming the king, everyone has eggnog and Fortrinbras gets a PlayStation.

Celebrate Me Home - Kenny Loggins: If you're ever on the road for Christmas, hopelessly lost and unable to find your way home, this is the song you want to hear, because despite its subject matter it will not depress you. It has a very cool beat and is about some guy singing about people "celebrating him home."

Now I don't know what exactly that entails. Maybe if the family celebrates hard enough, he'll be teleported Mega-Man style to your house, just in time to kill robots or have reindeer meet or whatever barbaric tradition your family engages in. But I'm not one to judge civilizations. I can judge Christmas music, however, and this one never fails to entertain. Yup.

I'll Be Home for Christmas - Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack: Roberta Flack makes her Christmas song debut with this duet. Peabo Bryson isn't too shabby himself. In fact, he's vastly underrated in the 1980s R&B circuit. Peabo's also heavily involved in Disney, and this song is just as wholesome as Beauty & the Beast. Wait, that song's not that good... how about A Whole New World?

Peabo's Disneyness makes him more accessible, but his voice, like any good R&B singer, is pure sex. But Peabo's sex is pretty wholesome, mainly straight missionary in front of the fireplace with maybe a few peek-a-boos thrown in.

As for the song itself, it has been done many times, but every other version is bland. This one blends a nice melody with Peabo's voice. The content is at first depressing: once again, another man is stuck away from home on a depressing trip, probably in a truck. But unlike Celebrate Me Home, the man is going to take it on himself to get home in time to open up his presents and neglect the wife while watching CHRISTMAS EVE FOOTBALL FUCK YEAH.

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney (sans Wings): Ah yes, what's Christmas without the Beatles? Actually a lot since I don't think they did much of any Christmas songs. But fuck them.

Anyway, SHaWCT (as it's officially known, pronounced sim-plee ha-ving ay wun-dur-ful chris-mus tyme) is one of Paul's forays into music that didn't involve his mind-bending Wings project. As such, I don't know who else was involved in it other than apparently a group of high people. Seriously, have you seen the video of this shit?

The song itself is kinda weird for a Christmas tune. It has something of a spooky melody and a creeping sense of dread that grows the more you listen to it. I can't really explain it, but try listening to it at Halloween and you may hear what I mean. The lyrics themselves are pretty straightforward: Paul is poor but he has friends and a ton of LSD so everything is fine fine fine! But Paul deserves kudos for trying something different with a Christmas song by injecting terror into it, and it works! So yay for England!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things - Rod Stewart: AH HA! you think. CAUGHT YA. This isn't a Christmas song at all, you say. Well newsflash, dickmunk: all of radio thinks this is a Christmas song, so it counts. And you know what? Jingle Bells isn't technically a Christmas song either, so belt that one out in January and see what happens to you, you GODDMAN SMART ALECK.

Anyway, this song has also been done over and over again, but Rod Stewart got it right when his raspy, cancer-ridden voice got ahold of it. I dunno why he's such a great fit. Perhaps because I can imagine him stumbling around New York City, coming off a heroin binge, mumbling it to himself, and I wouldn't have any trouble doing so.

Yes, this song screams New York City. How? Because it doesn't give a fuck. Even though radio says this is a Christmas song, the material is relentlessly unChristmas. Unlike Jingle Bells, which cops out by including sleighbells and shit, this song is played as a straight up jazz song with all the flair you can find in mid-1990s Madison Ave. New York. We're talking some really hoity-toity shit.

And in some way, it is a throwback to an earlier time, with Stewart singing about all the fine things that only a bored rich person would find fascinating (I mean, come on, whiskers on kittens? This guy clearly doens't give a fuck).

Honorable mentions: There are plenty of other good Christmas songs but sorry, assholes, you don't make the cut. But not to hurt their pwecious wiw feewings, here's a brief list of other state-approved Christmas muzak:

O Holy Night - Charlotte Church or Kenny G (actually, anything Christmas that's Kenny G related is cool)*
Anything from the Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack (yes, even Oogey Boogey Song)
We Three Kings of Orient Are - Mannheim Steamroller
Last Christmas - Wham
Do You Hear What I Hear? - WHITNEY!
Merry Christmas Darling - The Carpenters
Some other shit that escapes me now

Now go home.