Earlier in the week, I mentioned that I was feeling the holiday spirit on Saturday and listening to gwfgwf (generic winter festive gathering with food, coined by Superguppy Kat) music on my laptop. Of course, since my musical taste is eclectic at best, you wouldn’t be familiar with at least 95% of my gwfgwf music. But if you’re tired of the usual old Christmas songs, I’ve listed a few places you can check to expand your holiday music repetoire.
- Last year I posted about some of the songs I enjoy during this season, if you’re curious. (However, no guarantee on how fresh those links are anymore.)
- For a highly irreverent (and free!) holiday album, head over to Suburban Sprawl. This year’s album features such songs as “Santa Just Crashed into My House and He’s Drunk as F*ck!” by Arranged Marriage and “Stomach Flu for Xmas” by the Smoots. Keep scrolling down for mixes from previous years, back to 2002.
- Stereogum has free downloads of new holiday music from many indie artists.
- Chromewaves has two covers of songs from A Charlie Brown Christmas, from a new album whose proceeds will go to the Daily Bread Bank.
- Lifehacker has links to over 40 free holiday songs.
- Amazon’s giving away a free holiday song every day until Christmas.
- The Wiggly Tendrils are giving away A Very Wiggly Winter EP, including a song called “Sheepish Magnetism” about a sheep thinking deep thoughts while its shepherds are following a star…
- Largehearted Boy’s been including a holiday song or two nearly every day recently. This post has links to lots of free holiday music.
- Big Rock Candy Mountain posts wonderful holiday songs and mixes every day from Thanksgiving until Christmas. Highly recommended, especially if you’re a fan of retro country.
- Cover Lay Down recently featured new Christmas covers, covers of snow songs, covers of holiday songs by newly discovered artists, and covers of holiday music for kids.
- The Record Machine is offering a free Christmas compilation album, featuring indie artists.
- XO has another great free holiday compilation of indie artists.
- Rack and Ruin Records also has a free holiday compilation of indie artists.
- You can download Belle & Sebastian’s Peel Christmas Party over at You Ain’t No Picasso.
- Casper & the Cookies had a couple Christmas songs in their December 2008 Daytrotter session (songs four and five, on the right side of the page). Song four isn’t for the easily offended, but it is a darned amusing version of their song “Kiss Me Beneath the Christmas Tree.”
“And now I’ll yowl you a few verses of my favorite holiday song: ‘My Mom’s Too Mean To Buy Us a Cat Gym Christmas Tree.'” -Chaos
Hehe 🙂 I totally understand how hard done by you are Chaos.
LOL, can you only imagine having a tree in the house?!
Thanks for the link hon..
And I see Mayhem is showing her Diva-ness and for heaven sake why wont mummy buy her a Cat Gym…
**the nerve of some mum*****
E.H>
I keep meaning to ask you if you like Porcupine Tree at all.
Also, I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to tell you that Mary Jane enjoys drinking the water out of the Christmas tree stand.
That’s all. Carry on.
Smart mom, she’s gotta have a little control around there.
I’d checked out that Amazon giveaway. Can’t say Lady Gaga is high on my list of folks who should do a Christmas song. 😉
Lucky for me, my trio of kittehs aren’t interested in climbing the tree. They just take the ornamemts off. Our morning game consists of me trying to hunt down the missing Santa/angel/ball while they snicker at me!
No tree here, either. Esau Marie insists upon chewing the wires of the lights. I’m glad you put your foot down. One tiny victory, huh?
Chris- Aside from the giant balsam we always get- I got a little Norfolk pine that I decorated in a knitting theme.
Can they have one of those?
Chaos, somehow I can’t see you as too deprived. Gym or not.
I haven’t really been listening to Christmas songs lately. I find anything that has a chance of being played at a mall is right off of my list, so the closest I’ve come to holiday songs is Tom Lehrer.
I am fairly certain that a cat gym already graces your abode. But, so you know, those green prickly cat gyms are not all they’re cracked up to be – they collapse and fall over rather easily.
Oh Chaos, Mommy is being mean… No gym, I mean tree huh… She is a big meanie!!! Idea brewing Chaos, you can always climb up the entertainment center again… or go on top of the fridge and throw things, lol!!!!
Now now, we have to be nice to Mommy… Don’t bite the hand that feeds you! LOL!!
Chris, I hope today you are having a great day! And let there be snow… not rain at 30 below, lol! **still thinking about and head bangs forehead to desk**
I don’t know how my family has done it, but none of their cats has paid much attention to their 12 ft Christmas trees filled with +1000 glass ornaments.
Chaos, maybe Chris is saving money not buying a tree so she can buy you a whole tuna. Of course, one would have to be a nice kitty to get that…
Our cats don’t climb the tree, possibly because it’s a fake one (Dad has asthma) and they’re too big now to climb it without being able to dig their claws into something. Instead, they just eat the ribbon on the packages we put *under* the tree. *sigh*
And for a silly (and free, as far as I can tell while at work with no speakers on the computer) non-traditional Christmas song, how about the “Christmas Rhapsody” by Pledge Drive? (Scroll down ever so slightly to find it.)http://www.doubtfulpalace.com/artists/PledgeDrive/
That is one fierce photo! Lovely. We have a kitty ornament that we hang low on the tree, and the cats take it off and mess it up, and then it goes back on. They’ve never thought about climbing the tree, but maybe that will be an early xmas pressie.
Boy! I thought my kids were spoiled!
Wonderful! I love your musical suggestions.
Thanks for the links! For iTunes users, they have a free holiday album available for a week I think.
Oh, now that’s mean that you don’t get Chaos and May a tree. 😉
Thanks for the links on the holiday songs! I love listen to Christmas songs especially the old ones by Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis and Dean Martin. I grew up listening them on my dad’s 33s.
No Christmas tree, eh? Um, yeah…
Thankfully this year my cats are not trying to climb ours like they usually do. Maybe they finally figured out it’s not really?
Love the links! We needed something new…
Great post! I love unconventional holiday songs. My latest favorite is Jonathan Coulton’s “Chiron Beta Prime” … great for sci-fi lovers and a fantastic holiday-theme as well.
Thank so much for the links!
what ? no climby toes for the kids this year??
the song you linked for me was hilarious! and fitting since my family has been known to leave a tree up until Valentine’s Day (my mom left a fake one up until the 4th of July one year…was hanging little flags on it…)