But what is the worst thing about Christmas? Having to spend the entire day with your family and pretending you are enjoying it? No, that can actually be OK sometimes, just as long as it’s just one day a year. OK, how about the seemingly endless hours spent shopping for presents your ungrateful loved ones didn’t want in the first place? Nope.

How about receiving the kind of presents even the most desperate Third World orphan would turn its nose up at? Not even close.

It’s the endless barrage of Christmas songs you are subjected to. In the bar, in the shop, in your own house – you just can’t escape it. You are not even supposed to complain about it – because it’s Christmas, of course.

No wonder suicide rate rates are so high during the festive period.

It has nothing to do with the pressure of providing a successful Christmas for your ever-demanding family – it’s being forced to listen to the kind of songs you would at any other time of the year rather chew your own arm off than hear. But which ones are the worst? Which songs smell worse than Rudolph’s breath?

Here are our suggestions. Oh, and before you ask, we are well aware that some of these are not the original artists – just the worst…

20. Back Door Santa

Culprit: Clarence Carter

Ah, Christmas. Snow. The spirit of goodwill to all men. The innocent joy in a child’s eye. Bribing those same children to go away so you can have anal sex with their mums before their dads get home. We’re welling up. We really are.

19. Yellowman Rock

Culprit: Yellowman

Tinpot Christmas reggae as performed by an off-key albino Jamaican. What’s not to like?

18. Merry Christmas With Love

Culprit: Clay Aitken

He’s the father of a child, you know. The mind boggles.

17. Christmas Conga

Culprit: Cyndi Lauper

Incidentally, if you try and telephone Hell in December and all the operators are busy, this is the on-hold music you’ll hear.

16. Santa’s Beard

Culprit: The Beach Boys

Conclusive proof that a fraudulent department store Father Christmas was the catalyst for Brian Wilson’s decades of mental problems.

15. Christmas Shoes

Culprit: Newsong

The only song on this list where each line manages to be dramatically worse than the one before it, even though it never seems possible. Awful.

14. Eight Days of Xmas

Culprit: Destiny’s Child

“Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?” “Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?” “Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?” “Yes, it feels like Christmas.” Thanks, dickheads. You’ve been a great help.

13. Santa Claus is Coming To Town

Culprit: Bruce Springsteen

Or, as Bruce prefers to call it, Sannak Loss Iscummina Ta! WOO!

12. Santa Baby

Culprit: Madonna

You know what we want for Christmas? Our libido back, please.

11. Christmastime

Culprit: The Smashing Pumpkins

Good. There aren’t enough Christmas songs that sound like carbon monoxide suffocation. Thanks, Billy!

10. Here Comes Santa Claus

Culprit: Gene Autry

Substitute the words ‘Santa Claus’ for ‘Freddy Kruger‘ and you’ll realise why this song gives us the willies so much.

9. Jingle Bell Rock

Culprit: Billy Idol

We heard that if you watch this one all the way through, you get a phone call and you die a week later.

8. A Wonderful Christmas Time

Culprit: Paul McCartney

John Lennon wrote Merry Xmas (War is Over) and got shot. Paul McCartney wrote this abortion and lived. Make of that what you will.

7. Mistletoe And Wine

Culprit: Cliff Richard

No, that’s fine, Cliff. Start the video by peering through a window at a sleeping girl. That’s not creepy at all. You’ll be fine.

6. There’s No One Quite Like Grandma

Culprits: St Winifred’s School Choir

No. Not even ironically.

5. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Culprit: Jimmy Boyd

Dear whoever it was who decided to hire a boy with an obvious speech defect to sing a Christmas song with four different ’s’ sounds in the title alone – you are a genius. Thank you. Signed, the world.

4. Please, Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas)

Culprit: John Denver

Essentially the EastEnders Christmas special, but sung in a country and western style by a grown man pretending to be a seven-year-old boy. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Oh, wait, there’s everything wrong with that. Our mistake.

3. Do They Know It’s Christmas

Culprits: Band Aid

Interesting fact: the starving children of Africa wrote and released a response record to this, entitled Do You Know You’re All A Load Of Shit-Haired Sanctimonious Wankers?

2. Have A Cheeky Christmas

Culprits: The Cheeky Girls

Jesus Christ, this is like the last five minutes of Requiem For A Dream.

1. Millennium Prayer

Culprit: Cliff Richard

No words. There are no words.