As threatened/promised, I’ve decided to run a tournament to determine our favorite Christmas songs of ALL TIME! Here’s how it’ll work:
I’m not going to concern myself with different versions of the same song. For instance, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” will get one nomination, no matter if it’s Darlene Love, U2, or whoever else has covered that song. I’m making this rule so that we don’t end up just voting on 16 different versions of “Jingle Bells” in the last few rounds.
In the comments below, there are 4 groups. Nominate and upvote as many songs as you like under each one. I’ll plan on entering the top 16 upvoted in each group1You can downvote if you like, but it’s just a waste of time since I won’t be able to see downvotes. (assuming there are enough songs nominated) to make a standard 64-item bracket. I haven’t decided yet whether to keep the groups separate in the bracket (1 group per corner–there’d be no crossovers until the final four), or to just randomize them and let chaos reign. I’m willing to entertain arguments either way.
The 4 groups are:
- The Religious Division: Songs that are explicitly about Jesus, aka “The Reason for the Season”
- The Secular Christmas Party Division: Songs that are about Christmas parties, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, etc
- The Sad Christmas Division: Songs that are about being apart from loved ones at Christmas time and that sort of thing
- The Seasonal Song Division: Songs that are staples of holiday radio, but don’t actually mention Christmas at all
I’ll include a 5th group for songs that either A) don’t fit into any of the above categories, or B) could fit into multiple categories. For those, I’ll either make a determination of where each one belongs, or pull from this group to fill out any division that doesn’t get enough nominations. I’ll plan on leaving the nominations round open over the weekend. First voting round will go up sometime on Monday.