If you celebrate the holiday, there is a very good chance that you have a sincere but surprising conclusion to the following sentence: 

“Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without…”

For me, it’s maple-sugar santa candies, Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, a cassette of Christopher Plummer reading Ralph Manheim’s translation of ETA Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the King of the Mice, and a tiny, red, 78 RPM record of Carol of the Bells backed with the otherwise unknown song New Year Bells: a promotional gift given out to friends and relatives of Johnson’s Wax employees in 1952.

While exploring the music, movies, television, literature, art, and consumer products created in celebration of the holiday, one’s first observation is that 80% of it is objectively awful. For every It’s a Wonderful Life, there are a dozen, Christmas in PacLands. For every Fairytale of New York there are a dozen covers of Fairytale of New York. Nonetheless, every scrap of Christmas detritus is treasured by someone. 

“Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Home Alone 4.”
“Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Celene Dion’s Happy Christmas (War is Over).”
“Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without I Want an Old Fashioned Christmas.”

That last one of these is a 45rpm that I bought by chance as part of a bulk purchase of used 7-inch records. The record is only pressed on one side. It was written by Fern Davis and Bea Carpenter and performed by Pat Leanord, none of whom I could find referenced on the internet. The address of the “record label” that published it is private Long Beach, California residence. I am pretty sure that this was a privately pressed record that was given as a gift to maybe a hundred fifty people. It isn’t very good, but it is ernest. It is sincere. Somebody loved this song, and for them, it was just part of how Christmas was celebrated. 

As a child, my brother-in-law loved the song, I Want an Elephant for Christmas, a song from a relatively obscure album of holiday originals put out in the 1960s by one of the discount record labels owned by the Synthetic Plastics Company of Newark, New Jersey. It wasn’t until years later when he mistakenly picked the far more famous, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas out of a karaoke book that I understood what this song meant. This part of the celebration of Christmas important enough to feel essential, but it was particular to him and his family. 

This collection of songs aims to honor those novel yet meaningful celebrations. The majority of the songs were found in thrift stores and record store 25¢ bins as well as our own childhood collections. Some of the songs can be found on the websites of other collectors of obscure Christmas music, but some are probably otherwise unavailable. We hope you enjoy listening to these peculiar odds & ends as much as we enjoyed collecting them.


When Christmas Comes To Our House

The Magic Fingers of Merlin, The Swinging Hi Fi Electric Organ Trio

Too Close For Comfort

Emergency alert saying that I go home early today. 

New School Emergency Alert

Naked Swing (Christmas Is)

Feat. Matt Macfarlane, James Nielson

Smoking, Macho Man 

3 F'ing Minutes Episode #2

03 Three F ckin Minutes episode #3

3 F'kin' Minutes episode #4

Dated, University specific commentary.
James Nielson and Matt Macfarlane being amusing

Three F*ckin Minutes episode #5

Providing people with a single, unified ID card with all data used in daily life. It is a bad idea, but people seem willing to do it!

notatyrant