I've been struggling with Christmas music this year more than most. I have this self-imposed ban on listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I so enjoy Christmas music, that I refuse to over-indulge. I want it to remain special. And I kept to it this year. But I lost my iPod earlier this year, so I've had to listen to most of my Christmas music on the radio. Hence, my problems.

Here is my main problem with what I've heard: there are far too few artists who can interpret a song correctly these days. This doesn't show up as much as it should in most pop music because the songs are so poorly written that it doesn't matter if the singer has any grasp of artistry. But in some of the well written songs that are traditionally associated with Christmas music, an artists' flaws and shortcomings become glaringly obvious.

First I tuned in to the pop station. And mostly what I heard is artists who don't understand Christmas. They sing about Christmas with a vague sense that they need to put some feeling into the songs. But if that's you're starting point, please make it your stopping point as well. From what I know about pop stars' personal lives, (which is less than I could know, thank God), they don't have happy homes or traditional families. So they sing songs about happy family memories at Christmas time with all the honesty that I could put into a song about ridin' dirty and smackin' bitches up. Every syllable of their version of Christmas songs drips with effort and emotion. But when everything has the same emphasis... it's not emphatic. Big lush arrangements attempt to overcompensate for honesty. And it doesn't work.

And that's on the traditional and religious songs. On the pop Christmas songs, the shortcoming is the material. I don't want to hear songs about shopping and holiday stress. Those things suck. Why do we have songs about them? And why is it so hard to write a new good Christmas song? I don't think pop music has produced a decent one since Mariah Carey's, "All I Want for Christmas is You." And that one's merely decent.

Then there's the "Christian" musicians. These are supposed to be the people that "get it." First of all, there's virtually no difference between the music they're playing on "Christian" radio and what the pop stations are playing. The only difference is the artists. And all the "Christian" "artists" sing about Christmas like it's sex. They grunt and growl their way through over-produced shlock, overcompensating for a glaring lack of talent. When they sing about the birth of Jesus, it sounds like they're trying to get into somebody's pants. The subtext of their singing style screams, "I'm cool! I'm hip! I sound like a real singer on the radio!" But they're wrong. They stink.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But these over-generalizations are brought to you courtesy of the preponderance of evidence in their support by simply turning on the radio dial. I realize that I'm very open to criticism here for not naming specific artists. That's okay. I'd rather be guilty of that than badmouth real people.

I need to find some time to sit down and listen to some of my favorites: The Cambridge Singers, Amy Grant, Mindy Smith, John Denver and the Muppets, Bela Fleck, The Chieftains, Pavorotti, and Ralph Vaughn Williams.

And if I never hear that God-awful "Happy Birthday, Jesus" abomination again, I'll die a happy man.