Whatever happened to the Christmas Song?

The Sunday before Christmas was special.  It was a time for sitting in your bedroom with your tape player, finger poised over the pause button, hoping to record all of the Christmas top 40 without getting any DJ speak. There was no nipping off to the toilet during the whole three hours. The Christmas Top 40 was more important than any other (where you could record only the top 10) because then you would have all the Christmas songs ready for when Great Aunt Maude descended for Turkey sandwiches and the family pretended it was a party.

Quite often, during my childhood, the Christmas number one was a Christmas song or at least a novelty tune. The very first single I bought was a Christmas number one in 1972; The Long Haired Lover from Liverpool.  In my defence I was very young and was in love with Jimmy Osmond.


The last Yuletide hit that was vaguely Christmasy was in 1994, Stay Another Day by E17 wasn't very cheerful but at least it was festive.  It all started to go wrong in 1988 when Cliff Richard had a number one hit with Mistletoe and Wine.
http://youtu.be/b7lKKNrXUJg

Was this the worst Christmas song of all time?  It's the first one I think of but there are some other candidates.
Santa's beard by the Beach Boys (recorded at the height of their drug filled experimentation) has to be one of the most bizarre songs ever.
http://youtu.be/OYzHM5_o6g8
Cindy Lauper's Christmas Conga is another choice.
http://youtu.be/y7E2lcx23JA
Or if you really want to punish yourself you could listen to the Cheeky Girls Have a Cheeky Christmas
http://youtu.be/lC4gc11QFJA

But my favourite 'worst Christmas song ever' has to be John Denver Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk this Christmas
http://youtu.be/HzvQr8fidLo