Happy Holidays (Surrender People of Earth), Elks Skiffle Group (Happy Beat)

The Elks Skiffle Group are not a skiffle group, nor are they elks. They're a "puppet pop group from outer space" who traveled 32,000 light years to touch down in Blackpool, England in 2002 and make pop records.  Imagine a sort of garage-lounge sound with lots of keyboards and drum machine, but less polished than real live lounge music, and you've got the Elks Skiffle Group. Their motto, "The Sound of Tomorrow Today," might better be explained as "The Sound of Yesterday's Version of Tomorrow Today." Some originals, like "Fluffly Wuffly Christmas," "Hey Ho For Christmas," "Christmas Elves Are We," "Christmas Bells" and "I Want a Teddy Bear For Christmas" mix in with some self-referential versions of classic carols, as in "We 4 Elks" and "I Saw 3 Spaceships." I haven't heard any of their non-Christmas albums, so there might be a bit of humor in the connections between those and this that I'm not getting. You definitely get value for money; this sells for $6 and includes a CD-ROM component with lots of silly goodies on it. High irony content assures that this isn't for everyone. UPDATE: Their MySpace page, linked above, states they've returned to their home planet; the link it gives to its music is dead.