Hit play on the video above to listen to all the songs in our YouTube playlist!

“364 Days” by Murder City Devils
In what is quite possibly the most drunken and weepy Christmas song ever written, Murder City Devils vocalist Spencer Moody invites Santa Claus to sit down, pour a drink, and begin to let go of a long night, a long season, a long year. As the two regale one another with war stories, the whimpering violins flow through the chorus like tears streaming down a rosy cheek, and I can’t help but picture the two of them, saddled up to the bar like a couple of commercial fishermen who just returned from a cold, hard battle with the sea. Maybe they lost a couple of men. Maybe Santa forgot a few presents. Maybe we’re all hanging on by a thread. But we made it. And we’ll get through the next 364 days, too. Somehow. MEGAN SELING

“Abominable Snowman” by Michael Hurley
A whimsical tune about an abominable snowman’s love affair with a woman who has a frozen soul. RIP Doc Snock. AUDREY VANN

“All I Want for Christmas” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A jangly, jingly, reverb-laced ditty from the coolest person in the world, otherwise known as Karen O. JULIANNE BELL

“All I Wanted Was a Skateboard” by Super Deluxe
Anyone who grew up listening to 107.7 The End in the ’90s will remember crunchy pop-rockers Super Deluxe and their punked-up holiday anthem “All I Wanted Was a Skateboard.” It felt like the station played it constantly throughout December. (That’s not a complaint.) It’s fast and bratty and pissed off, and it perfectly encapsulates that kind of disappointment that can only come once a year, at Christmas, when all you wanted was a skateboard under the tree, but you got a stupid sweater. MS

“Another Christmas at Home” by Eux Autres
I have a vague memory of discovering this song by West Coast indie-pop band Eux Autres as a teen sometime around 2009 or 2010 on the Three Imaginary Girls blog, and it’s been a fixture of my Christmas playlists ever since. It’s a jolly, upbeat, slightly cheeky number about throwing on your jacket the second the last gift is unwrapped and sneaking out to the local bar to meet up with your friends. JB

“Birthday (Christmas Mix)” by the Sugarcubes
Feat. the Reid brothers from the Jesus and Mary Chain, the two main characters of Christmas. VIVIAN MCCALL 

“Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)” by Miles Davis
A humbug about the true meaning of Christmas: runaway consumerism. Could be called “Fuck Christmas.” VM

“Child’s Christmas in Wales” by John Cale
Once again, my boyfriend John Cale (of the Velvet Underground), singing about the Christmas traditions detailed in Dylan Thomas’s prose of the same name—what’s not to love? This entire album, Paris 1919, feels like a coke-induced fever dream of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Get into it. AV

“Christmas” by Beat Happening
Possibly the only song in existence that’s about having sex on Christmas Day. AV

“Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” by Tom Waits
This song is Tom Waits at his best—a lovelorn piano ballad from the perspective of a sex worker in prison sending a Christmas card to a lost love. Waits has a magical way of making his piano riffs sound like snowfall. AV

“Christmas Eve Can Kill You” by the Everly Brothers 
A surprisingly pessimistic holiday tune by the boys that brought us “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” I love the Everly Brothers’ 1970s albums because they sound more like the Byrds than a teeny bopper pop group. Play this alongside Dolly Parton’s “Hard Candy Christmas” for a good ol’ Christmas cry. AV

“Christmas in Hollis” by Run-DMC
It’s simply not Christmastime until you put on the finest carol from the golden age of hip-hop. This track is canon, this video is canon. EMILY NOKES 

“Christmas in Suburbia” by the Cleaners from Venus / Martin Newell
There are two versions of this wistful song—the home-recorded Portastudio version, and the version Martin Newell recorded at Andy Partridge’s (XTC) studio. You can’t go wrong with either. VM

“Christmas Is A-Coming” by Leadbelly
Early 19th-century folk and blues legend Leadbelly has a song about everything, from the sinking of the Titanic to the death of Jean Harlow, so naturally, he has a really great Christmas song. AV

“Christmas Rush” by Dead Moon
Even Portland’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, Dead Moon, have experienced the stress of the holidays: “Every Christmas it's the same routine / Last minute to do everything / The family's comin' and I'm unprepared / Come Christmas mornin', I just don't care.” AV

“Christmas Swing” by Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt only had two fingers on his fretting hand. As you can hear, he fucking ripped anyway. Big-band Christmas jazz has held Christmas jazz in a despotic grip since the ’40s. I can hear Bing Crosby only so many times before wanting to dig the man up and shake him by the lapels of whatever beautiful suit he’s buried in. VM

“Christmas Will Really Be Christmas” by Lou Rawls
A funky, minor-key jam wishing Christmas really was about peace on earth. Unlike Mr. Davis, Lou is hopeful that wish could come true. VM

“Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses
The bassline and horn section cement this as one of the catchiest alt Christmas bops on this list. But let’s lock in on the lyrics. It’s a stream-of-consciousness talk-rap deadpanning through the harried life of a 1980s woman who loves the holidays but is burnt the fuck out. (Remember, this decade sold the “have it all” myth: Women were encouraged to enter and excel in the workforce while workplaces still demanded masculine norms of overwork and total availability, even as expectations around childcare, housework, social/family management, and emotional labor barely shifted. Because women’s entry into professional life far outpaced changes in workplace flexibility, childcare infrastructure, or men’s participation at home, it makes sense that a lot of media from this time reflects women feeling stretched thin and maximally frazzled. Exhaustion was treated as a personal shortcoming rather than a predictable consequence of liberation without redistribution, a problem not even the biggest shoulder pads could solve. A mere 45 years later and HOW ARE WE DOING on this? ) ANYWAY! It’s 1981, she’s got a guy’s phone number, but they keep missing each other. If you called someone back then and they didn’t pick up, then you simply could not reach them. They have literally been trying to meet up all year but it never works out; she has a sunburn, his car won’t start. She’s been so busy all year that she’s ready to give up on Christmas and just take the night to herself. Uh-oh, though, she forgot the cranberries. In line at the store and who does she run into but The Guy. Is he also spending Christmas alone this year?? You’ll have to listen to all five-ish minutes to find out. EN

“Close Your Mouth (It’s Christmas)” by the Free Design
This unintentionally freaky ’60s pop vocal group went on to influence pop weirdos like Stereolab and Beck. Think: the Carpenters on acid. AV

“December Will Be Magic Again” by Kate Bush
Last month, I was delighted to stumble across Kate Bush’s wonderfully weird full-length 1979 Christmas special on my YouTube feed (a rare W for the algorithm). Even better, it introduced me to this original Christmas song, which manages to perfectly capture both the wistfulness and whimsy of the holiday season as Kate plays piano and croons in her signature eerie falsetto, referencing Bing Crosby and Oscar Wilde. There’s just a hint of darkness creeping in as she ends the song with “Come to cover the lovers, but don’t you wake them up / Come to sparkle the dark up / With just a touch of make-up / Come to cover the muck up.” If you harbor nostalgia for Christmas but also find it a little depressing because it never quite lives up to your childhood memories, this one will hit. JB

“Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues
What is left to say about “Fairytale of New York”? Released by the Pogues in 1987, the song is not only a widely beloved Christmas song—UK television station ITV declared it the country’s all-time favorite Christmas song in 2012—but it also appears on non-holiday-specific “best song ever” lists, including BBC Radio 2’s 100 Greatest Songs of All Time and NME’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. So, instead of gushing over its greatness—and writing 10,000 words about how vocalists Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl recall a toxic, drug-addled relationship with equal measures of love and mercilessness—I will leave you with this: A few artists have (bravely, unnecessarily) attempted to cover the song (Hozier, No Use for a Name, and, uh, the Kelce brothers???), but one man’s version has gone down in history as the very worst. In 2020, for his album A Jon Bon Jovi Christmas, Bon Jovi sang BOTH parts of the duet (WHY?), and it was not only decimated by the public, but Irish musician Rob Smith hated it so much he said, “I have heard Bon Jovi's cover of Fairytale of New York. It's the worst thing to ever happen [to] music, and I am including both the murder of John Lennon and Brian McFadden's solo career in there.” Bah! Humbug! MS

“Father Christmas” by the Kinks
A song about the common English experience of being roughed up by street urchins. VM

“Frosti” by Björk
An under-two-minute instrumental track that sounds like a wind chime made out of icicles. AV

“Fuck Anita Bryant” by David Allen Coe
I’ll admit that I’ve deceived you. This song isn’t about Christmas. It’s about how much antigay crusader Anita Bryant sucks. But she was an orange juice sales lady, oranges are totally Christmas, she is in hell, which is tangentially related to Christmas, and every day she’s there is just like Christmas to me, so I’ve included it. VM

“Funky Christmas” by Meiko Nakahara
No idea what she’s singing about, but it’s funky. VM

“Give Love on Christmas Day” by the Jackson 5
The entire Jackson 5 Christmas Album (1970) is a perfect yuletide classic, but the original Motown ballad “Give Love on Christmas Day” is the fam at their most tender and heartfelt. A plea for generosity and goodwill towards fellow humans that somehow doesn’t ring corny. And even if it does, I dunno, maybe let’s bring back singing lines like “What the world needs is love” and “Take time to be kind to one and all” and really, really meaning it. EN

“Hard Candy Christmas” by Dolly Parton
I don’t care what anyone says, this is the greatest (and saddest) Christmas song of all time. It was written for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, but the song stands alone. This one is for anyone who’s felt depressed during the holiday season and thought that moving away, losing weight, or getting drunk on apple wine would solve all their problems. AV

“Happy Holidays” by Hermine
This 1981 song hits all the marks for weird, depressing, beautiful holiday songs. Performance artist, musician, and writer Hemine, who worked with pre–Throbbing Gristle troupe COUM Transmissions, sings in a Nico-esque cadence to a simple piano riff and dub beat about wanting to get far away from “police oppressors” and “[blazing] sirens” for the holidays. AV

“Hazy Shade of Winter” by the Bangles
Paul Simon who? This is a cover and it’s technically not about the holidays, just winter, and even that is fairly abstract, but still: This song is freezing cold and totally rips. EN 

“Ho Ho Ho” by Teya & Salena 
Cleverly based on their Eurovision hit “Who the Hell Is Edgar,” Teya & Salena’s holiday song, “Ho Ho Ho,” gives long overdue credit to the real reason for the season: Mrs. Claus, aka the queen who holds it down while her husband hogs the spotlight. “She the baddest / She a savage / She make the best cookies ever, she no average / Think he schedules by himself, then you’re mad, bitch / Every kid got a gift ’cause she planned shit.” It’s sexy, it’s fun, and it might be the only song in the world that mentions Mrs. Claus’s clit! Happy holidays! MS

“I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You” by Margo Guryan  
Margo Guryan is an often-overlooked singer-songwriter of the 1960s whose lyrics are delightfully melancholy in contrast to her sunshine pop sound. “I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You” is a candy-sweet tune that features some of her moodiest lyrics: ”We had a fight / What of it? / You weren't even right / What of it?” This is the musical equivalent of sucking on the end of a candy cane until it becomes a sharp dagger. AV

“If We Make It Through December” by Merle Haggard
If you’re like me and always struggle mentally, emotionally, and financially through the month of December, Merle Haggard has a song for us. This one is best listened to while commuting to your retail job during the holidays. AV

“It’s Almost Christmas” by Hi-Fi
My huzz and I found this 7" single by the short-lived 1980s Seattle band Hi-Fi many years ago, digging through a used bin at Easy Street Records, and it’s been a favorite ever since. It’s a shrill, jittery pop tune about not knowing what Christmas gift to buy for your partner, full of punk-adjacent vibrato and a tense melodic energy that makes it sound like it’s playing just a little too fast. We feel like we unearthed a genuine treasure, and we want everyone to know about it. CORIANTON HALE

“It’s Christmas Time” by Sun Ra & the Qualities 
Originally released in 1961 on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, this adorable Christmas doo-wop song is the result of the free jazz mystic’s experimentation with harmony groups in the mid-1950s. Featuring Sun Ra as cocomposer and harmonium player, the original 45 features a barbershop quartet he picked up in Chicago crooning two festive tracks, “It’s Christmas Time” and “Happy New Year to You!,” accompanied by free-flowing percussion. Both songs really evoke the feeling of excitement, celebration, and childlike wonder of the holidays. AV

“Jesus Christ” by Big Star
On its surface, this song is a straightforward yuletide anthem, but dig a little deeper into the catalog of Big Star and the song’s author, counterculture king Alex Chilton, to find that this is an ironic Christian Christmas carol written by a nonreligious man and nestled between the very horny “Big Back Car” and very nihilistic “Holocaust.” AV

“Just for Now” by Imogen Heap
Imogen Heap’s signature cozy cyborg-core encourages us to come together with our unchosen family and set aside differences for just one night. You can tell she is this close to naming names. EN

“Just Like Christmas” by Low
This beautifully bittersweet track is the opener on indie group Low’s 1999 EP Christmas, which was released as a gift to the band’s fans and was referred to as “the religious album even heathens can love” by the A.V. Club in 2013. The song opens with sparkly sleigh bells and describes a dreary slog from Stockholm to Oslo that unexpectedly leads to a moment of childlike joy—based on a true story from Low’s spring ’99 tour in Europe.JB

“Listen, the Snow Is Falling” by Yoko Ono (or Galaxie 500 Cover)
Most people who hate on Yoko Ono’s voice have never actually listened to one of her songs. On “Listen, the Snow Is Falling,” her voice is light and breezy, and lands as gently and gracefully as a snowflake. Galaxie 500 also have an incredible droney psych-rock cover of this song, sung by bassist Naomi Yang. AV

“Little Star of Bethlehem” by CAN
This is a little ditty by the beloved krautrock band about two characters named “Froggy” and “Toady” who lug around tangerine seeds, eat popcorn, and bathe in a tub of water lilies. As the kids say, “Stop normalizing the grind and normalize whatever this is.” AV

“Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)” by the Ramones
Even the most supportive partnerships can get tense when it’s time to pull off the miracle of Christmas during a month that’s already stressful, cold, expensive, and you still have to work even though it gets dark at 4 p.m. and you’ve been on the verge of a sinus infection since Thanksgiving. Joey Ramone sounds like he’s about to cry on the opening line—he really, really doesn't want to do this right now, babe. 'Cause Christmas ain't the time for breaking each other's hearts. EN

“Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade
There’s an unfortunate dearth of glam rock Christmas songs, but this bouncy number from the British group Slade, which topped the charts in the UK when it was released in 1973, is a notable exception. The song was recorded in September in a hallway of the legendary Record Plant studio in New York to achieve an echoey effect, much to the annoyance of the uptight businessmen working in the same building. JB

“New Year’s Eve” by Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth Cotten was a self-taught guitarist and songwriter whose talents were rediscovered by the Seeger family while she was working as their housekeeper in her 60s. “New Year’s Eve” is an instrumental on acoustic guitar with a reflective, hopeful tone that mimics the turning of the new year. AV

“On Christmas Day” by Donovan & Friends 
Put on this dreamy bootleg while you pretend to listen to your drunk uncle. VM

“santa boy” by Matt Rogers
In the grand tradition of songs about fucking Santa, this little gay bop about being the man with the bag’s side piece, from the self-styled “Pop Prince of Christmas” and Las Culturistas cohost Matt Rogers, makes me cackle every time. Sample lyrics: “Santa come out, be with me / U N I L G B T / U R gay, be true to Q / love yourself like I love you.” JB 

“Santa Is a Gay Man” by Big Fredia
Mr. Sandman, reimagined as a song about fucking Santa Claus. A polarizing pick for a religious occasion if your spiritual practice doesn’t include sucking cock. VM

“Snow” by Claudine Longet 
There are several great versions of this Randy Newman–written ode to winter (Harry Nilsson, Saint Etienne, Tracy Thorn, etc.), but my favorite is by French singer, actress, and convicted murderer Claudine Longet. In 1977, she shot her husband, Olympic skier Spider Sabich, in the Aspen highlands while he was training, which adds a very eerie layer to this song about snow. Plus, she sings like a haunted doll. AV

“Snow Queen” by the City
In the period between writing pop hits with Gerry Goffin and releasing her ’70s solo albums, Carole King fronted a jazz-infused folk rock trio called the City. This song is either about (A) the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, or (B) a woman with resting bitch face. AV

“Space Christmas” by Shonen Knife
Straightforward, with no treacle. Shonen Knife is ready for Santa Claus. Shonen Knife is ready for Christmas Eve. Shonen Knife wants a spaceship (for Christmas). Shonen Knife wants to go to Pluto, and is awaiting Santa’s bison sleigh. Normal stuff. I love the beautiful, ugly guitar solo. VM

“Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)” by Harvey Danger
There are plenty of sad sap songs about being alone at Christmas (many are on this list!), but it wasn’t until Harvey Danger released “Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)” that we finally got a worthy soundtrack for the working-class folks stuck pulling shifts over the holidays. The bartenders, the 7-11 clerks, the movie theater attendants—it’s a very different kind of loneliness! But, as the song explores, working on Christmas can also come with ✨possibility✨. It’s a magical time of year, after all—anything can happen! And here, at the last minute, it does. Because just as you think the narrator (Harvey Danger vocalist Sean Nelson) is going to morph into a bitter, Christmas-crashing Scrooge, the song devolves into a psychedelic, horny, Beatles-circa-Yellow Submarine dance party, and everyone’s invited. Bonus: The video has become a lovely time capsule of Seattle in the early 2000s, with flashes of defunct University District businesses like Flowers Bar & Restaurant, Cellophane Square, Bartell Drugs, Half Price Books, and Grand Illusion. God bless us, everyone. MS

“Teenage Christmas” by the Jacobites
I found this hidden gem by ’80s English rock group the Jacobites because I saw Eux Autres (see above) had covered it on their limited-edition 2009 Christmas 7-inch, which only had 250 copies released (if you own one, I’m jealous). It’s a perfect Christmas anthem for your inner bratty teen. JB

“That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” by Sufjan Stevens
Like most Sufjan, it’s a bummer. Two children watch their father ruin Christmas by throwing all their gifts into the woodstove. I listen to it about 100 times a holiday season. VM

“The Blizzard” by Camera Obscura
If you like your Christmas songs extra bleak, here’s one just for you: the twinkly Scottish twee band Camera Obscura covering Jim Reeves’s 1961 tragic Robert Frost–esque tearjerker “The Blizzard,” about a man who treks through a snowstorm with his lame pony Dan on a quest to see his beloved Mary Ann. Since he refuses to leave Dan behind, the two of them succumb to hypothermia and freeze to death overnight, just 100 yards away from Mary Ann’s warm, cozy home and barn. Merry Christmas!!! JB

“The Cherry Tree Carol” by Shirley Collins / Pentangle
I’m a slut for any rendition of the 305 English and Scottish folk ballads Francis James Child collected and transcribed in the 19th century, the best versions of which were recorded in the 1960s. This one tells a weird story. While travelling to Bethlehem, Mary tells Joseph that she’s got a hankering for cherries. He’s like, what the fuck—you cheat on me, and you want me to get you cherries? How about the guy who knocked you up gets them for you? In utero, Jesus speaks. He tells the cherry tree to bow down, and because he’s the son of God, the tree obeys. Joseph is really embarrassed, and asks baby Jesus when he’ll be born. Jesus tells him he’ll be born on January 6, not knowing the weird connotations of that date. Anyway, the Shirley Collins/Davy Graham version is somber like a midnight snowfall, whereas the Pentangle version sounds more like a rabbit dashing through a frosty wood. VM

“The Christmas Song (or Come On Santa)” by the Raveonettes
A dreamy, glittery, ’60s-esque song that is, somewhat inexplicably, featured in the 2004 comedy Christmas with the Kranks, as well as in the teen dramas The O.C. and The Vampire Diaries. JB

“The Crooked Christmas Star” by Dory Previn
In the 1970s, poet/singer-songwriter Dory Previn wrote dozens of songs about being wronged by her husband, film composer André Previn, who cheated on her with a young Mia Farrow while she was pregnant. “The Crooked Christmas Star” is about someone (presumably her ex-husband) who gifts her a poorly made star for her Christmas tree, which she sees as a metaphor for the state of their relationship. AV

“The Man with All the Toys” by the Beach Boys
An underappreciated Beach Boys Christmas classic with a beautiful melody and dumb as fuck lyrics. “A big man in a chair / And little tiny men everywhere / He's the man with all the toys.” (For more of the same, see “Santa’s Beard.”) VM

“The Winter Is Cold” by Wendy & Bonnie
In 1969, when this song was released, Wendy & Bonnie were just two teenage sisters (17 and 13) who were encouraged to make an album by their godfather, Latin jazz percussionist Cal Tjader. The result of the album is a part psychedelic rock, part Brazilian jazz album, carried by the sisters’ irresistible harmonies. “The Winter Is Cold” is a simple, hypnotic song about being left in the cold by a lover. AV

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” by Hüsker Dü
An obscure 58-second promotional cassette of Hüsker Dü singing a snippet of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” If you don’t like it, it’ll be over before you know it. VM

“White Nights” by Psychic TV
This is a totally bananas doo-wop Christmas song by Genesis P-Orridge’s post–Throbbing Gristle band, Psychic TV. It’s actually a passable family-friendly holiday tune about Santa Claus checking over his naughty/nice list, until about three minutes in, when the machine-gun sounds start playing in the background. You’ve been warned! AV

“Winter Is Blue” by Vashti Bunyan
If you’re not familiar with the story of Vashti Bunyan’s 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day, you should know that she wrote the album while traveling in a horse-drawn carriage through Scotland with her boyfriend. This knowledge really sets the scene for her song “Winter Is Blue,” which details her loneliness through a winter breakup. The song also includes one of the saddest lyrics of all time: “I am alone waiting for nothing / If my heart freezes, I won't feel the breaking.” AV

“Winter Poem” by Nikki Giovanni
Have you ever loved a snowflake so much that you wanted to kiss it? This song, which is from poet Nikki Giovanni’s 1976 Folkways album The Reason I Like Chocolate, is about just that. Giovanni released several albums in the 1970s of spoken word poems atop silky soul-jazz that verges on proto-hip-hop. I am obsessed. AV

“Winter Song” by Nico
Written by my boyfriend, John Cale, and sung by my girlfriend, Nico (both of the Velvet Underground), “Winter Song,” from Nico’s 1967 masterpiece Chelsea Girl, captures both the beauty and the bleakness of winter with strings, flutes, and lyrics about government corruption. The song opens with the lines “The snow on your eyelids that curtsy with age / Is freezing the stares on tyranny's wings.” Excuse me, but that’s poetry! AV

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Seven notable covers of the Christmas classics we’ve been avoiding:

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” by My Chemical Romance

“Drummer Boy” by Justin Bieber, feat. Busta Rhymes

“Frosty the Snowman” by Cocteau Twins  

“Oh Come All Ye Faithful” by Twisted Sister

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Destiny’s Child

"Santa Baby" by Kylie Minogue

“Winter Wonderland” by Eurythmics