On Thanksgiving night, as I battled tryptophan and laughed my way through the Cowboys messing up a fake punt, I jumped the gun and dialed up the Christmas music.
Most years I am a strict adherent to the idea of giving Thanksgiving a little time to breathe before we deck the halls with boughs of holly. But this is 2020. Back in January, who would have thought that the number one thing on our Christmas wish lists would be a vaccine? But, as I said before, this is 2020. This year, more than ever before, I think we all need a little Christmas, right this very minute.
The quickest way I know how to lift my spirits is to throw on a Christmas playlist. I understand that music is subjective, and some people may disagree with my list, but these are my verified holiday go-to’s. Similarly, there are some Christmas songs we must avoid—I’m looking at you, Madonna’s “Santa Baby.” We also must, at all costs, avoid Bublé and Groban this time of year.
So, here’s my current Christmas Song Power Rankings, starting at eleven and working our way to the top of the charts. And please understand, this list is subject to change, based on things like a song being overplayed or too much egg nog being consumed on my part.
11. Player’s Ball
Yes, I’m starting this list with the OutKast song about an annual convention of pimps. This was OutKast’s first single, and it actually came out on a LaFace Records Christmas Compilation. If you’ve never paid close attention, notice the jingle bells playing throughout, as well as a few random lyrical references. (Andre even starts the song with “It’s beginning to look a lot like…”)
10. Christmas Wrapping
To be honest, I didn’t really take notice of this song until this year, when I heard it recently on the radio. I just assumed it was a new Christmas song by some cool garage rock band, and then I googled it and discovered this song came out in 1981. But it has a killer bass line, a great horn break in the middle and somehow sounds fresh despite being forty years old.
9. Do They Know It’s Christmas?
I love the New Wave-y feel of this song, and it has an incredible lineup of people involved, from Sting to Phil Collins to George Michael to Boy George to, strangely, almost all of Kool and the Gang. When Phil Collins comes in on the drums, this thing kinda goes.
8. Last Christmas
Keeping it George Michael, this song has become a Christmas mainstay, even covered by Taylor Swift, but I mostly love this one because the lyrics are so mean. Really pay attention to it, and imagine if someone gave you a card and wrote, “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.” WHAT I’M SAYING IS YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL, YOU JERK! But Merry Christmas!
7. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
This song CAN be included on power rankings, but only so long as it is the Jackson Five version. Young Michael basically wailing the word “Saaaaanta” throughout is just so great. And to be honest, you can make a great playlist entirely out of Motown Christmas songs. (The Bruce Springsteen version of this song is also acceptable.)
6. O Christmas Tree
Admittedly, this is sort of a boring concept—it’s literally a song about a tree. But when I used to live in New York City, one of our holiday traditions was going to Jazz at Lincoln Center for their annual Big Band Holidays concert. Throw enough Dixieland jazz and Wynton Marsalis into any song and you’ll have your toe tapping in no time. Even if it is a song about a fir tree.
5. A Charlie Brown Christmas
This is one of my go-to Christmas albums, because you can just hit play and let it run all the way through. It’s a bit melancholy at times, but Vince Guaraldi is so talented that he managed to create a cohesive album about cartoon characters celebrating a holiday that really just fits well together.
4. White Christmas
First of all, having formerly lived in a place that got tons of snow, let’s acknowledge that an actual “white” Christmas is probably really inconvenient for everyone—travel delays to start, then you have to shovel the snow, and then it piles up and stays there for weeks and turns grey and dirty, etc. But the IDEA of snow on Christmas is really what we’re after here, and who better than Otis Redding to deliver that message?
3. This Christmas
This song has been covered a billion times, but nobody beats the brilliant Donny Hathaway version. I think Hathaway and Nat King Cole have the smoothest voices ever. (Even if the bass kettle drum is out of tune on Hathaway’s version, which drives me a little nuts every time I listen with headphones.)
2. I’ll Be Home For Christmas
For the first thirty-something years of my life, I spent every Christmas Day at my grandparent’s farm in Alabama. Even if I had to fly in or drive over late on Christmas Eve, if it was Christmas, I was in Alabama, with my extended family. That tradition ended in 2008, when my grandfather passed away, and even now it still feels a little weird on Christmas Day to not be there, with all my cousins and aunts and uncles. I still can’t hear this song without thinking of all those Christmases that I spent there, and how special those times were. And I know this song has been recorded by basically everyone, but because my grandfather was a Bing Crosby fan, I’ll go with his version.
1. All I Want For Christmas Is You
Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic is the undisputed leader of the pack. I love how it somehow sounds old and new at the same time, like it isn’t an original song, but perhaps a cover of a song from the 1950s. I suppose it’s because the song shamelessly employs a Phil Spector/Wall of Sound vibe, but whatever, the song just works, and every time I hear it, I feel a tiny bit merrier.