Christmas Ape and Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp.
I'll get back to my half-assed list of favorite things of the thing later. It's time for some Christmas Jams! Most of these selections can be found on the mega rare Snowman-shaped Wonderful Christmastime/Rush Job 2-CD mix tape box set I made for a White Elephant exchange last year. If I remember correctly, Ms. Emily Twentyfive owns the only copy on spaceship Earth. Congratulations, Emily. They can also be found separately in many other places. Enjoy them together again for the first time below.

Alan Vega - "No More Christmas Blues"

Full credit to WFMU for alerting me to this. Not unlike Paul Beatle and wife and friends, only it was released on a Ze comp. and you probably won't hear it on WYYY. Also perfect for starting a Suicide kick if the pretty great knock-off from Candy-O isn't enough.

Caetano Veloso - "In The Hot Sun of a Christmas Day"

As previously side-noted a little while ago by me, this is the first whole Veloso song I ever heard, from Peanut Butter Wolf's (or someone else from Stones Throw's) Christmas mix from last year. From that category of Christmas songs that use Christmas primarily as a backdrop for a story about a guy narrowly evading a bloody manhunt. Includes the lines "Machine gun/in the hot sun of a Christmas day".

Claudine Longet - "Snow"

More of a winter song than a Christmas song, and a grim, lonely winter song at that ("Our dreams lay buried in the snow"), from the acclaimed French actress and songstress who left Andy Williams for pro skier Spider Sabich, who she later shot sometime in the '70s.

Rowlph and John Denver - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

From the Muppets/Denver collabo, A Christmas Together, which is up right there with A Charlie Brown Christmas, Crom-Tech X-Mas, and Dorothy Hammill's PAX nightmare from a couple years back. If I ever cover a Christmas song, I think it should be this one. I can do a decent Rowlph impression, and I know all the asides, too. It'll wind up sounding like Tom Waits and a guy making fun of John Denver, but I'm just going to do it anyway.

Mirror Image - "Deck The Halls"

From their 1979 album, Yuletide Disco, which looks like this. Not nearly as unbearable as Universal Robot Band's "Disco Christmas", but still covered in Variety Hour sheen and best in small doses. Lots of great synth sounds, though, and a cheap robot reggae version of "Deck The Halls" totally out of nowhere.

Bob and Doug McKenzie - "The Twelve Days of Christmas"

Arguably the only funny Christmas song that will be really, really funny forever. No disrespect to the barking dogs doing "Jingle Bells".

Non-Christmas jam of all-time is Ghostface and MF Doom's "Angeles" from the forthcoming album Swift and Changeable (DO NOT COPY) set for release in late 2006.