People leave work around the holidays and journey home, the place where they hailed from. It’s the stuff of biting family comedy (along with trains and automobiles). Let’s sing–but in a courteous sotto voce so we don’t get Air Marshals coming after us.

Steve Dafoe claims “I’m Flying Home for Christmas” in the weakest folk pop possible. Strum, mutter, strum cliche. Ho humbug.

J.Dub (feat. Sheena Robinson & Monay) plaintively rap about the need to return to the nest in “Flying Home for Christmas.” It’s smooth soul rap, so it softens the homesickness.

Driving pop from TobyMac points the lovelorn in the right direction as in “Bring on the Holidays.” The flight is only the initial arm of the journey, but still–gotta find something pretty to listen to.

Likewise the home-centric reflections of the country bluegrass “Christmas Time at Home” from Rhonda Vincent. Still, it starts with flying.

Living Voices goes full Lawrence Welk with “Flying Home for Christmas.” The schmaltz, the corn, the maudlin mistiness… it’s an ambience you couldn’t cut with a candelabra.

Then there’s the grounding of the flying reindeer. No, no, not tonight of all nights!!

Fiery boogie woogie from Sue Keller worries “My Reindeer Don’t Like to Fly.” Excuses, excuses, a five, six, seven, eight!

Cornball kiddie assembly singalong “Why Can’t All Reindeer Fly” doesn’t tread new ground. But you can keep the beat.

Rick Brown calypsos a dreamy downer “Santa Couldn’t Fly on Christmas Eve.” It was one of those Dickens ghosts making you appreciate the world you didn’t care about until it was gone. Or, was it a Capra angel?

Now Jimmy Dean’s “Little Sandy Sleighfoot” has skied by before. And i’m not so sure this is a reindeer we’re talking about, but deformities are all welcome in the pool of heroes who save Christmas for Santa.

Scott Fagan has a children’s operetta concerning a lesser known sleigh puller “Sandy the Bluenosed Reindeer.” This easy listening country tinged honest effort raises the canon of Xmas music, but it’s not much to add to reindeer history too. The little dickens doesn’t like the cold. Case closed.

Let’s take the diminutive out of hooray, and leave it yay/yea.

3JS jolly out the Celtic with “Yay, It’s Christmas.” It’s a song, a dance, a drinking challenge, an exaltation.

“O Yea It’s Christmas” is nearly unintelligible soft pop from Tony Memmel. Little enthusiasm.

Now for a hard right turn.

Many jokesters make the case that ‘Die Hard’ is a Christmas movie by posting musical numbers about the holiday based on the plot points. In order:

Weak tea from Triple A whose “Yippee-Ki-Yay It’s Christmas” stumbles from lack of talent, timing, and wit. Next.

Paltry parody from Dave Goody “Have Yourself a Yippee-Ki-Yay Christmas.” But it ‘addresses’ the sequels.

Cutesy and bleeped, “It’s a Die Hard Christmas” from Bob and Tom show’s Bob Kevoian maintains it’s not Xmas until that exclamation is heard.

Teen Samurai has some ironically soft rock limning “Christmas Time at Nakatomi Plaza.” Nice, not naughty.

Nathan Messina’s “Yippee Ki Yay, Merry Christmas” suffers from living room dad jokes and a lack of production values. Better than i could do.

Blaise Guld’s valiant attempt “Yippe Ki Yay, Mother fucker, Merry Christmas” wins merit with more summary and some nice tunesmithing. Oh, BLUE ALERT.

Better songs begin with White Hot Secret’s “Yippee Ki Yay Merry Christmas.” Emerging rock, but it’s not about John McClain at all.

Nearly perfect, the raw blues number “Yippee-Ki-Yay” from Fortress of Attitude is the best song here. It’s just not the best ‘Die Hard’ Xmas song by a hair.

Jonnie Common’s “Yippee-ki-yay, Father Christmas” might be the most clever/best song along these lines. Make fists with yo’ toes, boy. The title is not sung, however, yet the wicked wordplay overqualified it to be here. Thanks

If you wait long enough, it’s Christmas. Then another. Then another. Then another (unless you’re dead–but then another).

Jay Stansfield (feat. SAY) messes up the wiggly pop alt with harmonica in “Another Christmas Day,” reducing a cheery tune to a thoughtful, reflective symposium.

J seduces with the R+B whisper-song “Another Christmas.” So, you should be ready, girl, for what he’s giving you. Mmm-mm.

Michael V. wants to know how seriously you take “Another Christmas Eve,” what with all the hidden feelings and the need for forgiving and–apparently–bookoo baggage he packs into his easy listening caroling.

Is it getting under your skin, yet: this endless repetition of Xmas? Does it sand your chaps, golly your wog, irk your twig? If not, then imagining listening to truly awful songs about it.

Crusty cornball country from Kelly Nolf & Wyndi Harp equate fundamental religion with romantic love in the ticktock strummer “I Believe Again.” No i don’t get it.

Is that ‘Swanee River’ smushed in to some odd carol by Donivc? Only you can decipher by listening to the unasked for “It’s Christmas Again.”

The Hamsters from Hell sling the blues in “Oh No It’s Christmas Again.” A handy rostrum of restroom graffiti taunts.

Cathy Jones queues up the choir with her trembling warble of “Once Again It’s Christmas.” I suppose the song is about something, but how is one to tell?

Old white guys have fun, too! (At everyone’s expense.) So let’s bite off a piece of easy listening mayo and chew, chew, chew.

Jimmie Rodgers lounges through “It’s Christmas Once Again.” That’s fair warning.

Talk-singing, Kenny Rogers sermonizes for the unenlightened in “Once Again It’s Christmas.” The harmonica doesn’t help your case, Ken.

Christmas is over, now. Did you take down the tree yet? Recycle the wrapping? Pick up the pieces of your shattered love life?

“After December Slips Away” was first recorded by its originators First Call. They lean into the God aspect more. Donny Osmond, for me, makes his cover about heartbreak. So we’ll sneak it in here.

Shouting out the pain Shanghai Liliy Dublin includes trees and babies in the abandonment of lost love. “The Day After Christmas” is best accompanied with fist pounding on any nearby handy furnishing.

Stina Nordenstam doesn’t borrow any Xmas imagery to feel left out in the snow (that’s not there), but her piercing “Soon After Christmas” dawdling pop is about the desperation of wanting to turn the calendar page but being frozen. C’mon! Binge Queen’s Gambit! You’ll make it!

The operatic power of D.C. Anderson doesn’t quite get in the way of the sorrow of “Soon After Christmas,” a recessional walk down regret lane.

Some musical attempts satisfy the distracted, as background mood settings i compare them to wallpaper. No heroic efforts here. Not even for winning over hearts and bodies.

Wade Arney Wade has a song dedicated to helping a friend through cancer treatments, but the pop slick country of “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” sells seduction short a bedsheet or two.

Sentimentalizing the loneliness of the long-distant posted armed forces, Danny Bryam lounges up “I’ll Wait ’til You’re Home to Have Christmas.” Fine sentiment, but with this cheap warbling it’s more a two-drink minimum than a two-hanky honker.

The O’Jays inject R+B into the love letter “I can Hardly Wait” but over-orchestrate and over-produce the love into conman commonality. Sounds like the Vegas version.

Just as weak tea is the easy listening “Waiting for Christmas” via John Legend. He’s classy all right, but trespassing on Bing territory isn’t his strong suit. Lilts of soul don’t save this formulaic fuzziness. Sorry.

Let’s try this again. Rather than dwell on the imminency of Christmas, we shall talk about our feelings concerning waiting for Christmas. Is it delightful? Is it excruciating? Is it just something we do while the end invariably approaches?

And instead of filing through bad, mediocre, and good songs each day, try we all the smelly, then all the okay, then all the bearable, etc.

Commence:

Music with Quinn dares to improvise a Christmas carol on-the-spot. When improv (accidentally) stumbles upon sense, we laugh with relief. “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” is not that pop success. The falsetto doesn’t help.

Swing band jazz promises cool. But The Chocolate Jazz Band knows too few licks and gets stuck in a rut of tempo through “You Tell Me Why I Wait for Christmas.”

Another who means well is Lambert Wilson. His electric piano rhythms, his thick accent, his monotone–they all make “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” fun for his immediate family only. This calypso easy listening polka mashup is the casserole left in the corner of the buffet.