A holiday and Christmas music playlist compiled by J. Myrle
Fuller
I was a teenager when radio stations started going all-Christmas
music around Thanksgiving (and, as years went on, earlier and
earlier into November). Admittedly it's a guilty pleasure. After
years of listening to it as a retail worker, yes, it did get
boring and repetitive, but it also became a sort of comfort food.
Obviously I don't make other people around me listen at
inappropriate times but often in the fall I will play a few songs.
Anyway, the station that I listened to growing up was the
now-discontinued Star 102.5 out of Buffalo, NY. That station
eventually got sold to the Big Kahuna of contemporary Christian
music operators who shall not be named. So, I decided to create my
own. Since I don't use Spotify or any streaming music service like
that, I decided to build my playlist on the one platform just
about everyone uses that has pretty much any song you could want:
YouTube.
Shortly after 102.5 got sold, its longtime morning host and
program director Rob Lucas published his scheduling formula for
the station. "Scheduling
Christmas Music from a Different Perspective" is an
informative read on how radio stations put together a playlist for
the holidays. Because that was the station of my youth, I borrowed
liberally from Lucas's ideas, though eventually I decided to
refine them for my own purposes.
Lucas's library featured around 250 records in rotation. Broadly,
he separated these into categories: Christian (including hymns),
instrumental, pop, rock, classics (1960s/1970s), traditional
(1940s/1950s), and novelties. As a pop/light rock station, 102.5
favored a lot of pop and rock records. I broadened Lucas's
approach to add country records as well. Though Star didn't play
them, the other station that I regularly heard, 95.7 The Pig in
Olean (which is, thankfully, still around) played those kinds of
records as Christmas drew nearer—and a lot of those records were
the ones I was most fond of hearing. Maybe it was the fact that
they weren't drilled into our heads all season, but I was always a
country boy when it came to my musical tastes anyway (I blame my
grandparents). Now, 96.1, which took over the all-Christmas mantle
in Buffalo, does play a handful of country cuts, though it's much
more limited than my approach. Though some Alan Jackson and Dolly
Parton cuts (I mean, "Hard Candy Christmas" is enough to make
anyone feel things) make it onto 96.1's airwaves, my list goes
further and adds gems like George Strait's "Christmas Cookies,"
Alabama's "Christmas in Dixie," Barbara Mandrell's "It Must Have
Been the Mistletoe" and even a few REAL vintage bluegrass cuts
(which I suspect actually came from listening to WSM on the
skywave at night) like Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley.
I also added quite a few records from the United Kingdom.
Broadly, they seem to have a lot more upbeat rock-and-roll
classics. A few years back I started listening to Radio Exemas, a
station out of Devon (now Nation Xmas) and getting a feel for the
festive format there. Though a lot of British records did
make it over here (Lennon's "Happy Xmas/War Is Over," Sir Elton's
"Step Into Christmas," Sir Paul's "Wonderful Christmastime"), a
lot of the biggest songs of the UK did not really get much
traction here, even though they're really good. Slade's "Merry
Xmas Everybody" did get some airplay in the form of a slightly
awkward cover by the Radio City Rockettes on 102.5, but I keep the
original on my playlist. Songs like "I Wish It Christmas Everyday"
by Wizzard, "Lonely This Christmas" by Mud, the so-bad-it's-good
"Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" by The Darkness,
"Mistletoe and Wine" by Sir Cliff Richard (I could also add
"Saviour's Day" by him though I haven't yet), "Driving Home for
Christmas" by Chris Rea (which eventually made it onto 98.1 CHFI
out of Toronto after Rea's death in 2025) and the (in)famous
"Fairytale of New York" (a clean version), among others were good
enough for me to add to the playlist.
Being a native Western New Yorker, I did add some of the local
artists and songs such as the Goo Goo Dolls, Mary Stahl and
Michael Civisca, Scott Celani, and Barenaked Ladies (they're from
right across the border) that gave 102.5 its unique feel. Not to
mention songs like Mindi Abair's "I Can't Wait for Christmas," one
of Lucas's (and my) favorites that wasn't a huge hit but got a lot
of airplay here. Also there is "Happy Holidays from Channel 4,"
the famed TV promotional jingle by Jolly Demis. Some of you in
other cities like Phoenix, Denver and St. Louis may recognize that
jingle from your own cities and stations.
From other countries, I picked up "It's Gonna Be a Cold, Cold
Christmas" from Irish cutie Dana, while "Christmas in Our Hearts,"
a standard in the Philippines by Jose Mari Chan, also made the
list.
Perhaps one of the most irritating parts of traditional Christmas
formats is the excessive reliance on cover versions of the same
song. There are over a dozen versions of "Have Yourself a Merry
Little Christmas" that get regular play on a lot of radio
stations, and a half-dozen of several other chestnuts (and not the
ones roasting on an open fire). Add those up, and you end up
thinking "I just heard this song!" more than you want. Now, it's
not quite so bad if those versions have their own sound (assuming
that sound is any good), but I remember one particularly offensive
record, that of Jordin Sparks's version of "Do You Hear What I
Hear?" For the record, I didn't particularly care for the song,
but at least Bing Crosby and Whitney Houston's versions of the
record were distinct enough to have their own identities. Sparks's
version was a note-for-note copy of Houston's. It has no reason
for existence other than to worm onto stations that might think
Houston's too passe. And don't even get me started on the
countless horrible butcherings of "Last Christmas" that don't even
begin to touch George Michael's latent effeminacy.
Anyway, because of that, I took an unusual tack in compiling the
list: exactly one version of every song would make the cut. I
ended up with around 218 records at last count, which is not far
off from the 250 that 102.5 used to play, and more than the usual
150 you might hear on most stations in the United States, or as
few as 60 on UK outlets. Factor in that all 218 of those songs are
unique, and all of a sudden, you have something more listenable
for longer stretches.
Choosing some of those songs made for some agonizing decisions.
"White Christmas," you would think would end up Bing Crosby—but I
much preferred The Drifters' more upbeat take on it and chose that
instead. "Have Yourself...." ended up with the Carpenters, which
is arguably the most iconic. "Carol of the Bells" was perhaps the
hardest decision. Though I enjoy John Tesh's and Lindsey
Stirling's versions (David Foster's? Not so much), and had
Stirling's on the list for a while, I ended up going with
"Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It may
seem old hat now, but you have no idea how mind-blowing that
record was when I first heard it. There are some that, like "White
Christmas," I debated fiercely whether to waive it. "Up on the
Housetop" is Gene Autry, but if you want a second version,
Kimberley Locke has a solid contemporary pop version. Similarly,
Debbie Gibson's "Sleigh Ride" vocal is a nice change of pace from
the Leroy Anderson original I included. For "Last Christmas," I do
have the Wham! original, though I will likely swap it out with the
one version that can match its, well, gaiety: the Glee Cast.
"Twelve Days of Christmas" ended up with the John Denver and the
Muppets version, which narrowly beat out Straight No Chaser.
One of the most unusual decisions I made was the case of "We Need
a Little Christmas." Often associated with Angela Lansbury or the
Percy Faith Orchestra, the version that ended up on my list—and
this was initially by mistake—was Lucille Ball's, from the movie
version of Mame. Though I gave thought to replacing it with
Lansbury's record, after some listening, I decided that Ball's
voice reminded me too much of all those old grannies and aunts who
chain-smoked their way to a hoarse baritone voice by older
age. It was certainly not the most technically pleasing
version but it made for great nostalgia and I kept it.
Even with the broad net I cast for records, there were a few
records I decided just didn't quite fit.
I did include some records that don't typically get associated
with Christmas but I felt they complemented a holiday playlist
sound well. "Time Passages" by Al Stewart was a huge hit and fell
in the same vein of bittersweet Christmas nostalgia of songs like
Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" and Loggins's "Celebrate Me Home"
and made the cut. The Four Seasons' 1975 smash-hit "December, 1963
(Oh, What a Night)" got added after I performed in a local
production of Jersey Boys and realized it was a Christmas song; I
added it to a Christmas karaoke set and the crowd went absolutely
wild last year. But with that, some records that fell in the same
vein, I just couldn't add. Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock"
takes place on a winter's day in December, but its lyrical theme
was too isolating (my thought was it was about being Jewish at
Christmas) for me to put it in. Roxette's "It Must Have Been
Love," a number-one, takes place around Christmas but I narrowly
decided it just didn't fit (the American version genericized the
Christmas references to winter ones and was released in the
summertime).
I did not include anything by Michael Buble. In the vast majority
of cases, there was always another version that was better.
Broadly, he puts me to sleep.
"Stop the Cavalry" by Jona Lewie did not make the cut. It is to
Christmas records what "Born in the USA" is to the Fourth of July:
a hamfisted, bitter, antiwar screed tacked onto a vaguely
holiday-themed anthemic riff. Since it's not as familiar here in
the USA and for good reason, it's no huge loss.
I don't have any Thanksgiving records. Those are on a separate
playlist on my Thanksgiving page.
The question of novelties is a difficult one. You can't play them
as often because they're funny for a little while but get old
quick. So a lot of stations keep them to an absolute bare minimum.
That's difficult because a lot of my favorite holiday records are
in the novelty genre. I did include a handful of the most iconic
favorites, including Cheech and Chong's "Santa Claus and His Old
Lady," "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" by Elmo and Patsy, "I
Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," and so on.
Unfortunately, the one-version rule pretty much eliminated all
parodies, which left out one of my favorites, Bob Rivers. Weird
Al's uncharacteristically morbid and violent Christmas records
were never going to make the cut. Tom Lehrer's holiday records, I
reluctantly left them off since he's probably too obscure for most
audiences. But Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$," one of the
greatest satirical barbs of all time, is on the list. Consider it
my little act of revenge on corporate America trying to put the
kibosh on it when it came out.
I assembled the YouTube playlist in (brute-force) alphabetical
order. Because of that, I strongly recommend using YouTube's
"shuffle" feature. It's just easier that way to not end up
listening to the same songs in the same order over and over again.
Other than that... if you like the playlist, use it. Feel free to
take it and use it as inspiration for your own.