Consume-mas Quantities: burgers on high

Another Christmas sandwich?! Holy hamburgers, Jesus!

Honorable mention to the end credits of the Sinbad movie ‘Houseguest’ wherein he and Phil Hartman sing holiday hamburger hymns. Hardee’s-har.

The Pork Guys get more visceral with their party punk “Rudolph Burger… Hold the Nose.” We’ve covered reindeer meat for Xmas feasting before, but the burger category is a little lean, so i submit this anthem of mayhem to warm your nights.

Jason Johnson goes full country parody topping off Alabama’s ‘Christmas in Dixie’ with pickles mayo for his “Christmas at Wendy’s.” This is what we here in R&D at novelty Christmas music dot com look for in prize playables from our lab to your home.

Sweet Christmas! cookies 3

The Fairy Tale Pops is the 21st century version of sweatshop kids’ music. They crank out albums into dollar bins based on fairy tales Disney made movies out of but don’t own the Grimms’ copyrights to.

I don’t mean to malign their talent, verve, or business acumen (although their fan site has “0 fans” as of this writing). I think this flashy, percussive, bubblegum is just as good for children as Mozart in the womb. It has a formative place in human development.

I say all this because they have a complete album devoted to a particular Christmas cookie: The Gingerbread Man’s Christmas.

Featured tunes include the swinging pop “Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man” set to ‘Silent Night,’ a sassy ersatz-rock “The Chase,” and sweet harmony country style “Sweet and Tasty Pastry.”  Set to ‘Up on the Housetop’ “The Great Christmas Eve Cookie Calamity” sets the whole story up, however, with vertiginous rhythms and electronic orchestrations out of science fiction.

Jesus Christ! keep away

“Away in a Manger” is a courtly reverence from the late 19th C.

It’s a Death Metal Xmas (I think that’s the name of the group) plays “Away” games meaning Devil whenever it refers to Jesus. What pure anger, what absolute irony!

The Blind Boys of Alabama (featuring George Clinton and Robert Randolph) completely rearrange “Away” with mighty blues and a dawning of the funk. God!

Bob Francis takes it “Away” with a lounge lizard lipping on the Lord. He-e-e-e-y!

The Go Go Boys homosexualize the whole magilla with “Away with a Stranger.” Don’t blush, this is the least explicit of these queer chorusers. It’s almost romantic (for a Christmas vacation hookup).

Merry Mistletoe: key of awesome

Posting for February makes me misty-eyed for amor. I wanna ship you and you and you and you and YOU! To set the mood, we’ll decorate with a parasitic plant over doorways. A couple hundred years ago, English servants, so they say, found this frolic friendly enough. Rules may have included removing one of the white berries for each kiss limiting the playful pecks to but a few.

First off, some totally legit pop songs deal with this… yawn… bleary…what…

The only reason I might mention you J.B.’s song “Mistletoe,” is because of Key of Awesome’s totally rad parody. These guys (Mark Douglas and Ben Relles and Todd Womack) have been cranking out viral videos for 10 years–millions of youtube subscribers and billions of views. Worth it.

United We Christmas Tree Stand: soldier fun

We want to keep merry and bright during the holidays so we keep looking for that MASH smart aleck-ness of those over seas horsin’ around.

Look no further. Zack Applewhite has sent home a parody-song letter that might be funny. Welcome to the “U.S. Marine Parody of ‘Up on the Housetop.'” Ha ha, it’s sandy over there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61bPptqRyz8

Chanukah List: items four & five (ukulele, hippopotamus)

Slightly confusing is Alison Faith Levy (helped by Karla Kane) strumming away as earnest as a rabbi on Larry King Live with “All I Want for Chanukah is a Ukulele.” Oy gevalt.

Mr Palindrome tweaks the old ‘Hippopotamus’ novelty just the slightest which only adds fuel to the fire over whose holiday is ripping off whose. Nice trombone touch on his “I Want a Hippopotamus for Hanukkah.” The Jimmies rock their version if you feel like some real music. (Sadly the want another one for Kwanzaa.)

Santa Jobs: mcjobs

Surely Santa would get a professional set up! He would never just get run out of the skills market!

Well, if you can dream it, Jimmy Fallon can joke-sing it. His “Santa Claus Got a Second Job” has fun with pop music but the message is too tragic to really dance to. Regrets come AFTER Xmas.

More appropiately, Warren Baker takes his lyrics off amiright.com and plugs them into a karaoke machine (to the tune of ‘Grandma Got Run Over’) with “Santa Dumped His Job, Now He’s a Cashier.” This is the low-class, piece of trash parody we expect for the topic.

Santa Jobs: surfer

Motorcycle Santa? How ’bout loading up the woody and waxing the board, hang-ten buddy?!

The Hollyberries express your deep seated feelings: “(I Wanna Go) Surfing’ with Santa” in the appropriate key of Sea. The surf guitar rides like a never-ending curl.

Take a breath and grab a beach cocktail. Surfer Jim introduces you low-key style to “Surfer Santa Claus.” Okay, considering the monotonous melody, make that a floor mat and graham crackers and milk.

Alpha Waves California ratchets up the guitar again and delivers the sermon of “Surf’s Up, Santa.” Don’t be fooled by the group title, these are Aussies and their’s is more hard core wave shreddin’.

faffytunes brings the Australian surfboard culture to an odd British music hall tenor warble with “Surfboard Santa“–that despite the didgeridoo. I’m not visualizing the twenty-foot waves at all, guys!

Jody Whitesides even more strangely gets his ‘Seventies high vocal range pop/blues on to tell us about “I Saw Santa Surfing.” I think you saw ‘shrooms you couldn’t pass up, man.

Let’s stay authentic to the surf rock, if we can. Retro-cats Malibooz remind you of one of those other ’60s boy bands with sand in their hair harmonizing (and woo-woo-ing) to “Santa’s Gone Surfin’.” It’s cute.

Lord Douglas Byron pleads the percussive rock patter of the actual ’60s. “Surfin’ Santa” is the real deal ho daddies and grimmies and–yes–i can dance to it.

Ramblers get a little too ’60s pop and shrill with their “Surfin’ Santa.” But you have to understand how important it was to institutionalize beach parties back then. Everybody must be surfing! Even LBJ!

Indispensible for our novelty purposes, however, is kid show host Soupy Sales singing “Santa Claus is Surfin’ to Town.” Milton Supman (what i could do with a moniker like that!) broke big into counter culture the best way–he amused them! The rock here is real, the singer only marginal, but the fun is contagious.