"A Surfer's Christmas List," The Surfaris (Decca)

The first surf-oriented Christmas song, beating the Beach Boys to the racks by a year (1963). It uses the time-tested "tell Santa what you want" method of writing Christmas songs, but their way was influential enough to inspire the Turtles' update "Santa and the Sidewalk Surfer," more of a spoken-word novelty, and the spoken bridge to The Ravers' "Punk Rock Xmas." Update: Thanks to Radio Rumpus Room (KFAI-FM Minneapolis St. Paul) for telling us the B-side of the original vinyl single was "Santa's Speed Shop."

"Little Saint Nick," The Beach Boys (Capitol)

This trademark 1964 Beach Boys Christmas song gets a good bit of radio play at Christmas, but it hasn't traveled well over the years, since the car culture it was based on hasn't maintained its place in the popular consciousness. Nevertheless, it was inspired for its time and is still fun to hear; I imagine Little Saint Nick drag-racing the sleighs in "Jingle Bells" and "Sleigh Bells," not to mention Chuck Berry's Rudolph. Slip back over to The Sixties for a little more in-depth on Christmas with The Boys.

Malibooz Yule, The Malibooz (BCI)

More surf music for Christmas, but with a twist; a lot of these tunes are apparently originals, unless I somehow overlooked the Percy Faith Orchestra's version of "Santa Drives a Super Stock Dodge:" "And I heard him exclaim as he headed down Vine/Merry Christmas to all, now hear my Hemi whine!" These guys apparently are trying to channel the Beach Boys and come pretty close on many of these songs. This album is a reissue of A Malibu Kind of Christmas, circa 1992; they changed the title but very little else to tie in with another album of theirs, Malibooz Rule. The group is John Zambetti and Walter Egan, the latter the author of a solo album produced by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and they have a website. "It's Just Not Christmas" evokes middle-period Brian Wilson after the breakdown but before "Smile," and many others, like "When Santa Comes to Santa Cruz," "And a Happy New Year" and "Santa Man" definitely touch on several Beach Boys hits. Non-originals include "Little Surfin' Drummer Boy," something that's been done before but the Malibooz throw in a little "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" vocalizing, and "Carol of the Swells" surfs up the carol about the bells. Then there's "Rudy, the Hodad Surf Dude," based on Rudolph's song, in which a stranded Santa gets a loan of a surfboard to salvage the holiday. And the album ends with "Christmas Wrap," another surf adaption, in this case "A Visit From St. Nicholas," who was, wait for it, surfing. Fourteen tunes was a little too many for a one-joke album, but the good stuff bails out the rest of the CD.

Surfin' Christmas, The Wave Benders (Dwell)

These guys won't be having any trouble with the Federal Trade Commission with an album title like this one. Here we have a cool dozen classic Christmas carols rendered as surf instrumentals, except for vocals on "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," which lapses into a bit of "Small World" with different verses in different languages. The rest is straight 60's surf guitar soloing over good old-fashioned drums. The band even credits their source for vintage instruments in the liner notes, too. From 1996.