When I was on social media, I would share a few videos before Christmas that were my favorites. Here are a few of them.

Apple has A Charlie Brown Christmas locked in. You want to see it, you buy it or subscribe to Apple. That’s unacceptable. The monopolies of streaming services that charge for content is worse then cable TV ever was. And it’s just going to get worse.

Without my yearly viewing of the 1965 Schultz cartoon classic, here’s what I’ll have to settle for instead, and for some reason, they are extremely satisfying.

And of course, what would Christmas be without The 12 Days of Christmas?

I swear, those guys have set the bar too high. They will always be the best.

And what about the fun and excitement of Christmas shopping?

Still, Christmas does come with its hazards:

Christmas is a time of good cheer, giving and family gatherings. And bad music videos. I can’t remember the year, but one morning I was dozing on the sofa and my ex had turned on the TV. HBO’s Video Jukebox was playing this annoying video from Mannheim Steamroller.

It’s discordant, nauseating and makes you wish you’d never been born. My day was ruined. A whole post of coffee from the Silex could not put me right. For the rest of the day I felt out-of-sync with my body and the rest of the world.and the images of the band flying over the mountains was fucking stupid.

Of course there are worse Christmas songs out there.

Do you remember them? Well, I do. I can’t get them out of my head. Even in the heat of summer, with cicadas doing their nightly chorus, some of these haunt me. Jingle Bells has to be the worst. The fuck does it even mean?

Instead, when we were kids, we favored another version. It went something like this:

Jingle bells,

Batman smells,

Robin laid an egg,

Batmobile lost a wheel

And Joker got away

Infinitely preferable and much more enjoyable.

The Christmas gag songs pissed me off: I liked the carols, you know. As a child I was even then a Christian. I had faith. I often cried myself to sleep, saying simple prayers that I’m certain were answered. When that evil thing was in my room, I would make simple prayers that I would be loved and protected. O Little Town of Bethlehem, The First Noel, Away in a Manger, these gave me hope and cheered me on nights I would otherwise believe that there was no hope.

And I really believe that’s the main thing about Christmas: hope for those without any. Love and reconciliation between friends in conflict. Forgiveness. Love.

And I know that sometimes hope seems too out of reach. But when we give that up, we’re left with nothing. That’s much worse any day than a bad music video.

Let us all, no matter our race or Religion, agree on this.