Last month's issue made me revisit one of my favorite and timeless holiday classics, which I’ll get to once we start this listicle in earnest. Still, it got me thinking of some of my favorite modern Yuletide melodies. By the time you’re reading this tit rag, I’m sure you’re dreading the upcoming family obligations, gift guilt, and overall malaise brought on by a capitalist-driven psyops campaign to get you to support a crumbling economy. It is an awful time of the year for literally most people, and not because they haven't found Jesus or don't want to be asked when they're gonna have kids for the umpteenth time. Literally, most people just can't afford Christmas anymore in its current form. That anxiety and depression you're feeling isn't because you're a lousy son, throwin’ dollars at the dancers just hours after Thanksgiving Dinner (or a bad daughter for getting dollars thrown at you after said dinner). You're spending three-quarters of your paycheck on rent, and every time you go to the grocery store, it costs a hundred dollars. You can be forgiven for not spending an arm and a leg to fly to your shitty hometown on a flight that will most likely be delayed or canceled. It's okay not to buy meaningless presents that will eventually get thrown away. Still, if you’re guilted into one of these get-togethers and are tired of having to explain why you haven't brought a nice romantic partner for them to badger about breeding...here's a handy-dandy list of modern holiday hits to play when it's your turn with the aux cable. Let these diddies do the talking.
Clocking in at under a minute, this exmus classic will easily articulate your feelings about the reason for the season with efficient minimalist finesse. I suppose you could interchange this one for “Happy Holidays You Bastard” by Blink-182 for the same effect, but you’re an adult now and have grown out of your pop-punk phase. You wanna let your parents know your tastes have matured since the wallet chains.
This one is a good trojan horse to sneak up on your family and twist the knife. As they sway and sing along to the truly beautiful song, hopefully, the lyrics will slowly needle their way into their eggnog-soaked brains, and they'll start to feel the crushing guilt of disowning the alcoholic black sheep of the family. If any unsaid things are still buried, they’ll come flooding out a few verses into this gorgeous downer of a diddy. Fun fact: apparently, this tune is consistently ranked as the most-played Christmas song of the 20th century in the UK. You'd think it'd be Wham!’s "Last Christmas," but I guess drunken Celtic punk has a longer shelf life.
I'd wait 'til everyone's good and drunk to spring this one on the fam. It is teeechnically a classic Christmas carol, just with...altered lyrics. Without even cheating by Googling it, I know there are like six different versions of "The Twelve Days Of Christmas," where the absurd amount of birds this psychopath gives to his beloved is swapped out for something to match a different vibe. Guaranteed, some obnoxious cousin will put on the Twisted Sister one, and then someone will throw on like a Sesame Street version. That’s when it’s your time to shine. Watch as all the blood drains from everyone’s faces as they realize they’re belting “fiiiive herpes seeds."
This is a perfect one to bust out when everyone looks at your broke, empty-handed ass to see what you got for your nieces and nephews you never see. They might not get it at first, as is usually the case with punk music. The olds and the unenlightened often complain that they "can't understand what they're saying." Personally, I think Olga enunciates very well, but if needs be, just hand them a lyric sheet. I can't think of a song in recent memory that captures the true spirit of Christmas in this day and age—or the lack thereof. If, at this point in the booby magazine's word section, you're thinking I'm just using this page space to introduce you to my favorite Christmas songs by punk bands, you can eat my dick. I don’t get paid enough to write quality content. Just enjoy the recs and throw more dollars.
This one is a bit of a toss-up. There might be some older folks that still genuinely believe this is a good-natured, non-cringey, heart-warming Christmas classic. You might accidentally cause some insufferable boomer kin to corner you and tell you how much they cried when they first watched this air in the ‘80s. Man, what a wild time. Western Capitalism really was drunk with power and thought they could do no wrong before the Gen X apathy of the '90s vibe checked it, and then it collapsed in the new millennium. While this song may not ruin the family get-together, can you think of anything more tone-deaf than a country extracting every usable resource and destabilizing the shit out of a region only to—several generations later—put out a mid-ass single to throw some measly charity dollars at the mess it created. Not to mention the gall of asking a majority Christian nation if they're aware of said religion's most popular holiday. This is basically a less self-aware version of Mr. Garrison's "Merry Fucking Christmas" from South Park. If this song doesn't put a damper on the evening, show them the cover of the single. Seriously, look at this travesty—the '80s really were a wild time.
