“Jingle Bells” is not a Christmas song. It is not even a song about bells. It is a sleighing song, which is widely regarded as the only thing dumber than actual sleighing.

I am not trying to deny royalties to the writers of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” “Frosty the Snowman,” or “Winter Wonderland” (well, maybe “Winter Wonderland” a little) but I feel it’s important during this season of festivity and generosity to reflect on just how many Christmas songs have f***-all to do with Christmas. No Santa, no Jesus, no mistletoe. Not even any nog. Just a song about riding around in a giant horse-drawn sled, and how much fun that is.

How much fun does that sound like? How likely is it that anyone doing that in 2006 would be laughing all the way, oh ho ho, as opposed to remarking all the way, “This is ridiculous,” “how did anyone even think this up as a mode of transportation,” or “Holy Christ, this brakeless horse-drawn contraption will kill us all”?

I would also contend that even in 1857 the constant ringing of bells attached to a horse’s bobbed tail would only make spirits bright for about a minute and a half before sending you running off the back of the sled, o’er the fields, but I’m not prepared to make a big deal about it. What I do find insidious is that “Jingle Bells’” lyrics contain an ad for themselves. “Oh, what fun it is to sing a sleighing song… and we just happen to be doing that right now!”

(Are sleighing songs a genre? Were sleighing songs the 1850s equivalent of surf rock? I can think of two.)

Only working together can we hope to stamp out “Jingle Bells” in our lifetime. According to a recent study by the International Christmastime Jolliness Institute, 47% of all people who think they hate Christmas actually just hate that song.