No 'Last Christmas' Next Christmas

That's right. Christmas is nearly over, and I'm already making plans for next year. Plans to get certain Christmas songs banned from radio airplay.

Gasp! What's that you say? Censorship? Gasp!

Yes. yes Yes YES! YES!

I'm writing letters to the local radio stations in my area that broadcast Christmas music 24/7 for what seems like eternity. I'll ask them to please please oh please pretty please with sugar on top never play certain songs again. With all the Christmas music in existence there is no reason to have a playlist that consists of no more than 100 songs or so. We should never have to hear the same song by the same artist twice in a week, let alone endure the monopolization of airtime by the same songs over and over and over. What songs, you say? Glad you asked.

Nobody loves Paul McCartney more than I, but not even this hardcore fan enjoys hearing his WONDERFUL CHRISTMASTIME every hour, 24/7, from Thanksgiving through Christmas. No matter what time of day or night I tuned in to my local oldies station (93.3 -- sure, I'll name names) there was Paul warbling what is not a great Christmas song anyway.

And I'm not just picking on Macca. Josh Groban's version of O HOLY NIGHT was also unbearably omnipresent. Really? All the versions out there of that song and that's the only one being force fed to people who cannot take immediate refuge in an mp3 player? Once a day is more than enough. No, it's still too often, it is. As much as I love Paul McCartney, I pretty much swing a U-turn on Groban.

LAST CHRISTMAS by anybody. Because it's a terrible song. Even worse than GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER. Yes, it IS. Bad enough when the Wham! version airs, but having to listen to Taylor Swift's treacly tones or the Glee cast in hourly rotation left me with tennis elbow as my arm jerked toward the radio to make it go away.

Tell me you wouldn't like to take that guitar Santa gave Bruce Springsteen and whip him upside the head with it every time you hear SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, particularly when you hear it six or a dozen times a day.

And Band Aid's DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS? I know, I know, it was for a good cause. But what an awful song. Repeatedly forcing it into my ears does not numb me to it. I only end up cursing myself for forgetting the iPod at home.

Those are five Christmas songs I do not want to hear AT ALL next Christmas. (Well, I never want to hear Cyndi Lauper singing SANTA BABY again either, but I think even the radio station knew that once was one time too many.)  But how about you? Which holiday songs were you overexposed to this year?

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And since I don't want to be totally negative on this wonderful day, here are five songs I'd like to hear more often:

CHILDREN GO WHERE I SEND THEE by Daryl Hall & John Oates

PRETTY PAPER by Roy Orbison or by Willie Nelson or, my preference, Don McLean

HOW MANY KINGS by Downhere. Even if you don't like the song you gotta admire how the lead singer channels Freddie Mercury.

CHRISTMAS SONG by Gilbert O'Sullivan. 

ALLELUIA by Richard Marx