Is it closing in around you, like a polar bear hug? Is it running over you, like a FedEx driver in a parking lot? Is it substituting every cell in your body with tinsel? Resistance is fruitcake. Christmas is HERE.
I developed researchers tunnel syndrome this year, overdeveloping categories of Christmas novelty songs that aren’t even a thing. But managed to turn up some jewels, so assume the position and let me lead you through what makes me happy.
JANUARY continued my long arc of sleep motifs from 2024, this time settling on INSOMNIA. That helpless nocturnal state: straitjacketed with sheets, unable to form a coherent thought, stuck in a loop is best audiolized by Indiana Drones‘s album Christmas, which loves a DJ skip back over the same phrase. This way, you can appreciate how unbearable your old X-faves really are. Share that.
The one song that won’t let my ears free from this month would have to be The Yule Logs’ “Up All Night“. Retro surf bebop rock, it’s an insomnia party. Perhaps you otter check out the album of the same name.
FEBRUARY furthered the wakefulness on Christmas Eve trope with tracking down St. Nicholas. Sneaking a PEEK, ambushing, and capturing were fun ways to make use of the wee hours. Kids excel at this, so let’s take some time with Professor Steve (Steve Roslonek), whose album Christmas Songs for the Young and the Young at Heart includes many songs that pick essentially the same tune out of that banjo, but soar across the imagination of children.
The song that wowed me this month was a musicalization from David Phelps’s own children’s book “Catching Santa“. Excellent tango rhythms.
MARCH finishes up our sleep cycle with songs that encourage you to WAKE UP, as children are wont to do with parents Xmas morn. Let’s call on Mighty Magic Pants, children’s entertainers with a palatable modicum of snark. Their album/show It’s Christmas! runs the gamut of childhood concerns.
The most disturbing song from this curated month was Gator and the Gator Boys attempting to “Wake Up Daddy (It’s Christmas!)“. It goes from bad to worse with nearly zydeco frenzy. You are welcome to tune out at any time. OMG
APRIL asks the big question: do you BELIEVE? In Santa, God, Christmas, Ron Popeil return policies??? Doesn’t matter which, what matters is, is your faith enough to raise you from the bottom, to lift you up? I’m overcome with belief enough to allow The Fleshtones‘ Stocking Stuffer album. Few if any of these are original to this band, but their garage no-trucks-to-give RnR put me in the mood to follow cultishly.
The impenetrable psychology of children is explored in the listen-to-believe-it number “Santa is Real” from Jugboy (Milford Willabert). Just when you think it can’t get any weirder….
MAY flips the script and serves up CYNICISM for all institutions, including disbelief. So let’s rock responsibly with Bob Wire‘s Exile on 34th St. album. (And shame on me for not endorsing his cooperative earlier effort with Chip Whitson, Off White Christmas.) It’s homegrown without studio bells and whistle, but it does in fact rock.
Too many individual songs to love just one, but existentialism to my head, i gotta feature the doo wop of Heebee-jeebees’ “Please Santa be Real“. This kid is strug-gull-ling.
JUNE was oodles of fun. I figured musical INSTRUMENTS figured in to Xmas music inherently, so i scouted songs that featured them individually. Even the guitar and drum songs were often awesome. Too much to choose from here, so give Creamed Corn‘s gamey country funk a try in the form of the album Santa Loves You. There will be drinking.
Groovy to the max is Anna Jeter’s “Synthesizer For Christmas“. This is a real rash from the past.
JULY (partially) posited how percussive BODY NOISES could be musical as well. Some mungy smelling beauties here. So allow me to once again go to the Tom Dyer trough to feed. His best holiday collection is Xmas-30 Years In The Making, a confident musical range from ska to funk to country to garage to rock. All in one.
Dawn Bosley’s “Santa’s Got the Hiccups” seems to have special needs, but it’s as cute as a three-legged puppy. That one’s been haunting me since i first heard it.
AUGUST was a scrounge for further music DELIVERY, so i cobbled together novelty tunes about records, record players, boomboxes, bands (salvation and otherwise), as well as choirs. It is from such desperation that diamonds are discovered roughly. What a find: Mr. B’s Christmas Album. Jim Burke, aka Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer, has performed ‘chap hop’ for nearly 20 years. Larf riot, eh wot?
When a singer throws me for a lurch, i gotta relisten over and over. But i still don’t know what to make of KC Glynn‘s “Chrinese Cowboy Hats“. A trucker with import-phobia, a jukebox in a truck stop, and the perfect Xmas gift set the scene for a Johnny Cash kind of lecture.
SEPTEMBER seemed to be the conclusion of this music making merriment with a closer look at CAROLING. Longtime blog contributor, the Jacobsen Brothers has Eric and Paul making funny and cool music all on their own (no labels) collected as Jacobsen Bros Christmas Tapes, Vol. 1: 1980-1983. Envious, that’s me.
The way to show your Christmas spirit is to sing loudly and badly. Thus, Dollar Signs and the folk screed “Caroler“. Close the blinds, douse the lights, activate the lawn sprinklers. Way to make a point, buddy.
OCTOBER might not be a pivot, but Xmas SHOWS of all kinds were sung about this month. Not clear how, but download BearRon’s Completely Stupid Christmas Album any way you can. Just a guy (Rob Barron), a guitar, and an uncanny sense of humor. All i need for a happy holiday season.
The blues from Matt Braunger & Mike Phirman set off “Holiday Road Comic“, a truly epic road trip to land a stand up gig in a faraway land. That was a Christmas show to end all Christmas shows . Two laugh minimum.
NOVEMBER was MOVIES month. Plenty of overview, and of course a couple dozen songs about how ‘Die Hard’ really is a Xmas film. That old dead horse. It’s about time, then, that we made it official: Robert Lund‘s Elves Gone Wild is one of the best holiday parody albums. Period.
Not only is “It’s No Christmas” boogie woogie, not only is Larson Lee a one-man band, but nearly every movie/special you know is checked in this rafter raiser. Mercy!
DECEMBER did not stay in our lane when GAMES/SPORTS were combined for the holidays. Dreidels get to spinning. Cards are dealt. Balls are thrown (snow, foot, basket, and more). So let’s honor one more master of Xmas comedy singing, Dave Rudolf–and his marvy album Completely Cracked Christmas. It’s nuts!
Harris and Hart have a series of EPs you should really check out, that is if this Wild West gambling showdown “Dingo” does for you anywhere near what it does for me. Mixing Christmas and cards might be a death sentence, or interrogative anyways. These go goofy covers, foreign language (pig latin! Latin!), parodies, and down right hilarious oddities. And to all a meh album.
Well, this is what i have to show for my year. You’re welcome.
