Alternative Christmas

Bah-humbug! For those of you out there who thought maybe Scrooge had a point, and need shelter from the endless bombardment of saccharine carols and cheesy Christmas covers, here's a list straight from Yuletide's leftfield. The Vandals raise everyone's spirits with a sprinkling of seasonal punk on "Oi to the World" — "Oi to the punks! Oi to the skins! Oi to the world and everybody wins!" — the Waitresses take all the pain out of "Christmas Wrapping," and Hoodoo Gurus kidnap a much-loved holiday tune and truss it like a turkey: "Little Drummer Boy (Up the Kyber)." If Santa's getting you down, our Next Steps will cheer you up . . .

The idea of Iggy Pop doing "White Christmas" like it was composed at the bottom of a swamp is entertaining enough. But sliding the bare-chested one into the same Christmas-centric playlist as Boy George, Lisa Loeb, and mellow beach boy Jack Johnson — that's just insane. Especially once you actually hear the featured holiday fare, a quirky stew that includes the steel-toe-tipped punk of "Xmas Guantamera" by the Yobs (check out their spicy wordplay), the careworn-but-happy melody of "Donna and Blitzen" by Badly Drawn Boy, and the ballroom blitz of "Hey Santa" by the Royal Crown Revue. As if all that wasn't weird enough, our Deep Cuts alternates between Venom and Wesley Willis surprisingly smoothly.

As comforting as it is to hear unique spins on Christmas classics like "We Three Kings" (reimagined as an arena rocker by Fuel), there's nothing quite like hearing sleigh ride originals that are completely random. Like, well, the snow-dusted power pop of "I Want an Alien for Christmas" by Fountains of Wayne, or any of the following left-field selections: the battery-powered melodies and manic speak-singing of Wesley Willis, the rockabilly/skewed country revivalism of Holly Golightly, and Venom's snowscape-in-negative, "Black Xmas."

We know how you feel about Christmas — where some people see good cheer, you see hollow jollity; where's there's tinsel, you see tarnish; and in place of a rosy-cheeked, white bearded, red-suited barrel of fun from the North Pole, you see a fat alcoholic in an ill-fitting costume fronting yet another tacky commercial assault on the world's collective wallet. Yet, still, you feel happy, mainly because all the artists on this Alternative Christmas Essentials list feel pretty much the same way that you do, and they've tickled the underbelly of Yuletide so that even the most cynical among you can raise a glass, and a smile.