I love how Nick Cave is wearing a pink Take That (British boyband) t-shirt in the video for Staggerlee.

Syd Straw wittily repurposed Blondie's song into an xmas song: "I'm Always Touched by Your Presents, Dear."

Some rock stations will play the occasional rockin' Christmans song, like Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" or Lennon and Ono's "Merry Christmas (War is Over)".

Or at least they used to. I rarely listen to the radio these days.

Syd Straw wittily repurposed Blondie's song into an xmas song: "I'm Always Touched by Your Presents, Dear."

OMG Want.

I'm pretty sure most corporate radio stations here in the States stick with the tried-and-true formulaic rock and country all year 'round.

I'm inclined to disagree except that I pretty much only listen to NPR and my ipod anymore. I recall hearing frequent christmas songs on commercial radio way back when... have they stopped programming for Christmas? It used to be that several pop artists would put out new holiday songs each year.

Radio or no you get Christmassed at everywhere you go. Step into any store and it's the soundtrack. Here at work we're currently playing about 30% Christmas or winter themed songs. The town of Beverly Hills has a whole strip wired to play carols. The directory channel on my cable has even color coded every show that is holiday related (blue with snow in the corners) this includes the home shopping network.

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas...

Rumor has it, the goose is getting fat.

It's my experience over the past several years that one station in each market switches over to Christmas music. Maybe it's a Clear Channel thing.

This secular nation is a strange, strange place. Do you know that despite the clear hegemony of Christianity in this country, despite the fact that no one could be elected to lead this nation who wasn't a professed Christian, despite all of evidence before any rational person's eyes just walking anywhere this time of year, I still regularly get spammed by relatives complaining about how Christians are a poor, beleaguered, constantly-under-threat minority in this country? I'm astounded every time.

I should point out that for a committed secular agnostic, I do really love Christmas music and Christmastime, and I do think it should be a secular holiday. All of that "true meaning of Christmas" stuff seems silly to me, but then again, maybe I'm just a liberal humanist trying to oppress the poor, beleaguered Christian minority in this country (who just happen to dominate all of our institutions).

I was raised secularly but we were big on Christmas and I love older Christmas songs (Frank Sinatra! Bing Crosby!) but I can tire quickly of cheesy pop stuff.

Now I have if you really love Christmas... come on and let it snow going through my head.

OMG Want.

I can hook you up.

I've got so much Christmas music that I long ago got tired of hearing different takes on standards and have focused on finding new Christmas songs that are good. I mean, there aren't that many rocking versions of "Little Drummer Boy" that I need. Five or six is plenty. Once Joan Jett did it, everybody else should just step off.

It was cool when Combustible Edison had the good sense to cover "Christmas Time is Here" from Charlie Brown Christmas, but now everybody's covered it umpteen times and I'm good on that one.

I think I've got at least two favorite versions of every classic song.

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" - Bing or Chrissie Hynde.

"White Christmas" - Otis Redding or The Drifters.

"Frosty the Snowman" - Leon Redbone, or... I guess I just need Leon's version there.

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - Jackson 5 or Bruce Springsteen. Ideally with the Bruce version you get the long intro story about how he got stuck carrying the amps. But nothing really tops an 8 y.o. singing about Santa Claus coming.