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This 2012 song has very little to do with the oft-mooted stereotype of Jewish people clogging such establishments on Dec. 25 every year. This is more of a piano-led ballad of crying in one's moo goo gai pan over lost love on the holiday. It's pretty good, if downbeat. From their self-titled album. Video below.

From 2012, a fine boisterous rocker about the holiday, no relation to the "Chestnuts" song (I try to use the word Chestnuts in the title when writing about that song). This English band from Oxfordshire formed in 2010 and they've posted a video with lyrics as well. Check 'em out.

We previously mentioned Anthologies, the artistic collective local to the creative community of Leeds in the UK, and their 2012 Christmas album. This is their 2011 Christmas album, featuring some of the same artists seeking financial support for the collective. Paul Thomas Saunders opens up with a slow and downcast version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and the song is reprised in a solo guitar version by Mi Mye later in the disc; Himself takes on Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You," although the minute or so of warmup at the beginning tests a listener's patience; and Grant K Fennell breaks out the accordion for a rendition of Low's "Just Like Christmas." Hannah Peel's "I Believe in Father Christmas" gets a folky music-box arrangement, Run Speed Tiger covers Sufjan Stevens' "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever," Pengillys perform "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," and Lone Wolf goes solo with only reverb guitar on "Fairytale of New York." Just Handshakes gives us a sparse but rocking version of "I Still Believe in Christmas Trees," Chi & the Twelfth Wall do a chamber-pop rendition of "Dear Autumn," Arthur Rigby takes a Kinks-ian approach to "It Feels Like Christmas," and Sam Airey medleys "In the Bleak Midwinter" with "If You Get Lonely This Christmas" backed by fingerpicked guitar. Wrapping things up are Post War Glamour Girls with "Fathers For Justice (A.D.)," Gary Stewart with "Blue," and Biscuithead & the Biscuit Badgers with the sprightly "Snow," a bit of New Orleans skiffle with tuba subbing for bass. This is a bit more morose-sounding than the subsequent year's collection, but there's still plenty of highlights. Available only from the link above, with suitable donation.

A pretty good alternative compilation from 1991 featuring some recognizable names. Crash Test Dummies do a pretty straight-up version of "The First Noel," The Wedding Present tackles Elton John's "Step Into Christmas," Young Fresh Fellows perform "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Henry Rollins recites "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the Hoodoo Gurus do "Little Drummer Boy (Up the Khyber)," in a Russian folk version. Other cuts include "Blue X-mas (To Whom It May Concern)" by Drunken Boat, "Silent Night" by the Primitives, "Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella" by Carnival Art, "O Holy Night" by Divine Weeks, "Kings of Orient" by The Odds and "Here Comes Santa Claus" by Clockhammer. UPDATE: This is a more than necessary update, as a reissue of this album for 2012 on Funzalo Records, despite having the same title and cover art, is for all intents and purposes a completely different album. Only Clockhammer, Divine Weeks, and Drunken Boat cross over to the new version. The other songs are gone, replaced with 12 other tunes, seven of which are done by a band called Sirsy. Six of those songs are standard pop songs and carols done in a blues-mama belting style, not terrible but not particularly remarkable, either. The seventh song is an original called "Some Kind of Winter," a not-bad ballad. The Jolly Boys give a Caribbean reading to "Long Time Ago in Bethlehem," aka "Mary's Boy Child," and "Christmas a-Coming." Robin Lane, she of the 70s-80s act Robin Lane and the Chartbusters, has two songs, "My Xmas List" and "A Winter's Night," both from 2011, and the final song is "Christmas Gets Me Down" by Luca, a decent mid-tempo power pop number. I can't imagine why the current producer thought it was a good thing to rip off the name and cover of a previous classic holiday compilation; a different title and cover art was clearly called for here. Nevertheless, the current version of the album isn't exactly terrible by any means, it's just not the classic album that's been hollowed out and strung up. If you click the cover art, it will take you to an Amazon page that shows 3rd party sellers with copies of the original; click the Funzalo link and it will take you to the "updated" album.

Josi is actually a jazz guy, so I wouldn't normally address this except for the presence of Smithereens songwriter DiNizio, who slips off his rock 'n roll shoes to duet on "Winter Wonderland" and "White Christmas." Those two songs are as you'd expect, set to a bossa nova beat, and the EP fills out with the same two songs minus DiNizio. Perfectly fine renditions, but no Mistletunes mojo to these songs.

Looks like we lost track of these guys after featuring one new Christmas album of theirs after another for several years. For those who don't remember, they're a punk band exclusively dedicated to Christmas music. They're a bit less prolific nowadays, but I'm still annoyed that I missed out on this 2010 release of theirs, which takes the 12 Days song and replaces the gifts with terms from the Urban Dictionary. The cover art shows a Parental Advisory warning, and I think I'll let that speak for itself, as typically anybody who refers you to the Urban Dictionary for a word meaning is trying to avoid making a NSFW reference out loud. In other Jingle Punx news, they had a new song out in 2012, "The Parting Glass," an Irish traditional song with a similar theme to "Auld Lang Syne," but don't worry, they punked it up real nice; and an archive release of their version of "Jolly Old St. Nicholas." They've also expanded to Halloween and other holidays, and you can check all this stuff out at their Bandcamp page.

This Manchester label has been like clockwork in putting out a new collection every year for eight years. This 2012 version kicks off with Otalgia's "Dear Santa," in which a brief snippet of "Silent Night" gives way to a punkish letter to the jolly elf with a pessimistic outlook. Chandler D Obelisk performs "Away in a Pret a Manger," what appears to be a satiric poke at a narrator who thinks he's being imposed upon to help a needy person at Christmas time. Laura Skilbeck channels "Friends" character Phoebe with her song "Films About Christmas," Steveless offers "Madvent," a profane parody of "Good King Wenceslaus," and the Paraffins Featuring Chloe Philip give us "Christmas in Glasgow," a synth-pop complaint about a holiday "fiasco, with chicken from Tesco." The Drain on the Balcony's "A Christmas Trilogy" is a medley of three songs, including another parody of "Wenceslaus," Float Riverer do an acoustic, non-Dickens oriented "A Christmas Carol," and Partly Llama also stay acoustic for their "Running Back For Christmas." The Pocket Gods, veterans of numerous Cherryade comps, offer two tunes, a punked-out "Silent Night" and their own "Jesus the Time Traveler," a dirgy, fuzzed-out plea for salvation. The Low Countries offer "Carry On Christmas," in which St. James is looking down on the proceedings from heaven eating crackers while the vicar prepares a holiday dinner, or I think that's what they're on about, anyway. Collider Featuring Jason Dixon presents "Little Drummer Boy" as a drone, throwing in "Peace on Earth" as well, and Lance Romance sings about "The Boy Who Saved Christmas." Cherryade is only making this available from their website, and they've only pressed 100 copies, so it's entirely possible this is sold out already.

Sorry I didn't get a mention of this up before the holiday, but Chico, Calif.'s finest all-singing, all-dancing and all-Christmas-plus-Hanukkah band managed to get its fourth new album out for 2012. This one's a live album featuring performances of mostly songs from their first three albums; only the songs "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," "Holiday Road" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" appear to be new to the recorded repertoire. But they're a good performing band and the album works in some humorous stage banter between songs. If you haven't sampled this band's work before, this is not a bad way to become familiar with them. It's at CDBaby, Amazon and iTunes.

Well, this is a hoot. Way too short to be a real album, but Horne, of the band Bear Ceuse, got it into his head that he needed to hear popular Christmas carols as they would sound if done by up-to-the-minute indie rockers, and so he did it himself. Nine tunes, none more than a minute, and all being streamed (only) via Soundcloud. "Rudolph" is done in the style of Interpol, "Joy to the World" as Beach House, "Here Comes Santa Claus" as Bon Iver, "Silent Night" as The xx, "Deck the Halls" as Das Racist, "12 Days of Xmas" as Gorillaz, "Hark! Ye Herald Angels Sing" as The National, "Jingle Bells" as Wavves and "O Christmas, Ye Cold Wind Blows" as Mumford and Sons. This is great, too bad he didn't carry these tunes on to full length. But maybe we heard just enough, in this Twitter era, to enjoy the concept. From 2012. (Maybe the full-length follows in 2013?)

The artist, who works both solo and with the Jersey band Better Off Dead (and who was behind the holiday compilation A King Family Christmas), has a history of putting together Christmas videos. This is the 2012 edition, a nice shuffle with a catchy chorus. V.D. tells us this is late because of Hurricane Sandy, but he doesn't give us any details; hope whatever setbacks Sandy caused are now behind him.

This Toronto band made its biggest splash by recording in England, and this 2012 holiday tune is a great up-to-the-minute commentary on how technology alters our social lives -- and how it doesn't. Explicit and less expicit versions offered, and a "lyric video" is available, see below. Grab it from Amazon or iTunes.

The Highline indie-rock label just sneaked this collection onto the market in December 2012, an interesting collection of Highline artists "and their friends," as the website states. And just like the fake holiday of the title, it's a grouping of Christmas songs for the rest of us. Correatown kicks off with the folky-western arrangement of "Christmas Time Is Here," an original, not the "Peanuts" favorite. Skiffle and the Piffles offer a nice acoustic "Just Because It's Christmas," in which doing things because it's the holiday is frowned upon, though with a smile on the singer's face. Piney Gir rocks things up a bit with "Every Day's a Holiday," and she's collecting enough unique tracks for her own Christmas album. The Glam Chops live up to their name with the 70s stomper "Countdown to Christmas," which would fit right in with all those classic British holiday singles of the era. The Baubles go all Raveonettes with "The New Going Out," Alphabet Backwards sends a pop-rock message to "Dearest Santa," The Real Tuesday Weld offer the pensive "Song of December," and Monnone Alone have questions for Santa in "Everywhere At Once." Hunks & Friends consider "The Magic of Christmas," the rockabilly sound comes from The Werewandas on "I Love You Santa Claus," Still Flyin' rock out with "St. Veit," a nod to the Austrian town, Birthday Kiss raise hosannas to a "Sentimental Christmastime," The Little Kicks remind us that "Santa Claus Is Not a Number," Russell (El Disastre) gives us a breakup song, "Christmas Day (Time To Let You Go)," and Alexander's Festival Hall give us a touch of the music hall with "Present and Correct." A highly listenable collection on its own that should also prompt you to investigate Highline's artists during the non-holiday season.

Well, not exactly a gift, since you have to buy it in hardcopy or download versions from the label, which is based in Spain. This 2012 collection kicks off nicely with Attic Lights' tune "Why Should Christmas Be So Hard," a sentiment increasing numbers of people have been subscribing to lately. It's got a nice production straddling Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, a good opener considering the album title. Guille Milkyway and the Jelly Jamm Sound Orchestra go uptempo with the sprightly "Holding Hands Around the World," The Yearning offer a sweet orchestral ballad, "I Just Wanna Hold Your Hand (On Christmas Day)," The Magic Theatre perform a tribute to "Christmas Lights," The School goes retro with the heavily 60s-sounding "Let Me Be the Fairy On Your Christmas Tree," and they return with another girl-groupy song, "You're Coming Home Tonight." Bells lead the "X-mas Song," an original by Edine Avec Lisle Mitnik Et Son Orchestre, and yes, that's spelled correctly. BMX Bandits sing "Let's Make Christmas Love," which instrumentally recalls Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys but with baritone vocals. The Primitives, which may be that same 80s band I'm thinking of, complain "You Trashed My Christmas," and YouDoMeToo go synth-poppy on "Bells To Ring and Jingle." And since this collection originated via a Spanish label, we have a number of tunes in that language, like "La Luz Del Mundo" by Single, "El Viaje Majico De Santa Claus" by Modular, "Los anillos De Alcyone" by La Casa Azul, "Te Espero En Navidad" by Axolotes Mexicanos, "Donde Todo Sigue Igual" by Band Å Part and, just to throw a spanner in the works, Fitness Forever go Swedish with "Su Sventom Kaledom," although it's an instrumental. It's a great collection, whether hardcopy or download. There may be some vinyl left at the website, but it's supposedly a limited edition. Check out The Yearning's song:

Sarah's already got a Christmas album under her belt as well as a couple of stray cuts here and there. This is new for 2012, and it's her with students from the music school she founded. Money raised from the song supports the school. It's a nice mid-tempo Christmas pop song, available from iTunes or the school's website.

This 15-year-old songstress is being marketed by her management as a country-pop performer, but this 2012 song is all pop and almost no country, other than the slightest bit of Texas in her voice. It's a nice piece of contemporary hit radio pop-rock that she wrote herself, asking for the gift of love. It's on iTunes if you're interested.

This is an interesting piece. It combines surf guitar and drums with vocorder-treated singing of an antique holiday folk song. Impressive work. Grab this 2012 effort from Bandcamp. While you're there, check out this Vermont band's holiday tunes from previous years, like 2011's "I Wonder As I Wander," a more folky treatment, and 2010's "Song For a Winter's Night," a spacy treatment led by organ.

We've had this band on the site a couple of times before for singles, and they just sent this over to us to feature. Nice song, possibly the best of the three we've had up so far. Strong rocker with upbeat lyrics. From 2012. No independent audio yet, near as I can tell, but they do maintain a Bandcamp page.

Right Said Fred is, of course, noted for their one massive hit, "I'm Too Sexy," from 1991. Twenty years on, they remain known for their one massive hit. Don't know if this 2012 collaboration with noted cartoon character Mr Weebl will change anything, but as it's quite the sprightly dash of holiday dance floor synth-pop, why not, eh? Grab it from Amazon.

Somewhere between rockabilly, surf and 50s pop comes Jason and his axe with this 2012 collection of holiday instrumentals. He also throws a tropical twist into the proceedings with "Hawaiian Sleigh Ride" and "Mele Kalikimaka," the latter featuring xylophone along with the electric guitar. Seven classic tunes in total make up this short EP, adding to the above "Happy Holidays," "Christmas Waltz," "Jingle Bell Rock," "Frosty the Snowman" and "Holly Jolly Winter Wonderland." Nice work, and even the cheesy cover art compliments the concept. Click that art to grab from Amazon.

These guys gave us a nicely antique rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" last year, and for 2012 they continue in that vein with this single, an uptempo cello-led rock rendition. For the flip side, they go even more antique with a version of "Silent Night" that includes vinyl record surface noise. Check it out at Bandcamp.

• Roy Kasten, the web editor at KDHX in St. Louis, signals us that his station once again has a compilation of artists performing Christmas songs live in their studios. Folks like Deer Tick, Rum Drum Ramblers, Grace Basement, Half Knots, Rough Shop, Letter to Memphis, Rah Rah, Neé and many more provide an array of tunes, many of which appear to be originals, across an eclectic spread of styles and genres. Most, but not all tunes are downloadable via Soundcloud; the rest are streaming-only. Check them out here.
• And I don't think I mentioned that WXPN-FM in Philadelphia has, for the second year in a row, released a freely downloadable compilation of Philly-area artists performing holiday tunes. Among the performers are Good Old War, Deb Callahan, Shaun Ruymen, Ryan Tennis, Aaron Brown and the York Street Hustler, and a good few others. Like KDHX's collection, it's fairly eclectic; unlike KDHX's, it's all studio versions and no streaming.
• Speaking of compilations, for those of you who didn't notice it lurking there in the left column, this year's Mistletunes mix disc liner notes have been posted. Check it out at your leisure.

This album was out in 2011 but was punched up for 2012 with an additional track, "The First Noel," a nice power-poppy ballad arrangement at that, and turned loose on Bandcamp and Amazon. It's mostly familiar songs, but there are two originals, "Branch's Arms," a ballad that contains the album title and talks about building a nice fire, and "Holy Winter," another ballad with a little bombast to the arrangement. A solo piano version is also included. "Jollly Old St Nicholas" is a sprightly version driven by electric piano, "What Child Is This" is a more intense ballad arrangement, while "Silent Night" and "Auld Lang Syne" are quieter and more reflective. This is gentle indie pop, for those of you seeking a change of pace. Another one that's at Bandcamp.

A very Ramones-inspired band, although a little more poppy, this 2012 single is high-energy power pop about wanting records for Christmas, as opposed to CDs or an iTunes gift card. In fact, the vocalist bears a sonic resemblance to Joey Ramone. Just to underline the point, they cover "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" on the B-side. Good stuff. Follow the Bandcamp link.

This 2012 single is a nice bit of pop rock aided with banjo, telling a story of enjoying a holiday gathering but ultimately going home alone. It's a bittersweet tale and one that will make a nice change of pace in your holiday playlists. It's on Bandcamp, folks.

A nice slice of Irish-influenced folk-rock about drunken revelry in the family home, which is what got the Puritans mad enough to ban Christmas and the rest of us to write hilarious essays and songs like this one. Gotta love lines like "The eye-rolls and whispers come out from the kitchen/I'd come home more often if they'd just quit bitchin'." If these guys are trying to make people forget the Pogues, well, that's a tall order, but they've made a hell of an effort. Maybe a little dark for some, a little too Irish for others, but it rocks out and that's fine with me. Check it out for yourself:

These guys, one New Yorker and one Dane, have been around for a number of years but I've never run into them until now. This is from 2011, a very Depeche Mode-sounding ballad about the topic of the title, nicely done. They previously did "What I Want For Christmas" for 2010, in which the desire is to hold a lover closely. It's a little more uptempo. Both songs are worth your attention.

This band from Canada's west coast has a couple albums out and they identify as alternative, but they also appear to have a Christian rock streak, as their current Christmas tour features appearances in churches. I'd say this 2012 EP has more of a modern mainstream rock feel to it, crossing electric and acoustic sounds. They have sprightly takes of "O Come O Come Emanuel" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," a fairly dramatic version of "O Holy Night" and an interesting original, "For All," an acoustic ballad reflecting on the Biblical story of Christmas. This is good enough that you'll want to seek out the band's non-holiday output. Grab this from NoiseTrade.