12 Best Alternative Christmas Songs - We all know the Christmas songs at the top of festive playlists, such as the indomitable Mt. Rushmores Your Pogues, your Slades, your * vomits * Mariah Careys. Despite the obvious classics, many of these perennial Yuletide songs are infected every December as a festive-themed ear cancer. To the extent that a store in York has been banned from storing its workers on a direct sled at Broadmoor. There have been a number of similar "indie" Christmas songs on similar ground: Low, Sufjan, * vomits once more as he stabs the closest DJ, * The Killers. While many of these songs are inherently wonderful, they fit firmly on any list of the best "alternative" Christmas songs, becoming staples that eventually lose some of their golden sheen through the routine of the repetition.

So my mission with this article is to list the best alternative "Christmas" Christmas songs, with some familiar faces and hopefully some songs you have never heard of. Unless you've heard of them. Then well done. You win.

12 best alternative Christmas songs

Merry Christmas!

Nathan Fake - Peace Night

There have been more versions of "Peace Night" than stones on Skegness Beach. That would be true if I wasn't lying, but this Nathan Fake version is arguably the most interesting and unique. The bright, luminous synthesizers dance enthusiastically through the familiar notes of this perennial anthem, creating something deliciously new from a tune seemingly as old as time.

Ballboy - Merry Christmas to the drunk, Merry Christmas to the lovers

It seems like a tragedy that Ballboy hasn't released an LP in more than a decade, but they released a little-known EP in 2013, Merry Christmas to the Drunks, Merry Christmas to the Lovers. The lovely low-profile acoustic song of staring into the eyes of a loved one as the snow gently touches the windows is the perfect antidote to the frenzied bells and whistles of lots of Christmas music.

ADAM AND ELVIS - Santa and the Great Beyond

I actively hate music videos and find it constantly bewildering that bands continue to produce them. However, "Santa and the Great Beyond" by ADAM & ELVIS is a rare example of a song that actually gets better when watching the video. This Christmas alcohol and romantic desperation song contrasts beautifully with a hilarious video of the singing Patrick Malone dancing around Reading with what appears to be his only friend, an invisible cat.

Neil Hannon - Song for 10

Originally written for Doctor Who's first Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, the lead version of The Divine Comedy didn't really hit TV, but this is the higher version. Song for 10 is a hint of hope and promise as you see a new heaven, new teeth and all the possibilities of a new life. In the words of the Doctor, he is fantastic.

Nosferatu D2 - It's Christmas for the love of God

Christmas is often a contusion of emotions, from euphoric to desolate, to nostalgic and tedious. This Ben Parker song is as bleak as Christmas music can be; a calm and wild letter from someone for whom the holidays become an endless cycle of cynicism, disappointment and despair. Not one to play during the current opening, but a wonderful track nonetheless.

The Peasants! - A deer to a deer

The Peasants! I released a lot of great Christmas songs and chose this dreamy effervescent song purely for Boxing Day football line. In Leicester vs. Birmingham Boxing Day 2003, someone said the worst I ever heard at a football game. After our then Captain Matt Elliott was kicked out, the uncle sitting next to me called the referee; "I hope you drown in your damn Boxing Day turkey sandwich." Absolutely wild, especially considering it was 200% a red card.

Poem - snow falling on a silent night

Released in September, this song by the prolific and increasingly virtuoso environmental songwriter Angela Kilmek is an intensely happy ode to winter and all its complexity. This soundscape is undoubtedly disturbing, as the feeling of dimming the winter sky causes intrinsic sadness, but also how it evokes a sense of sublimity.

The Shins - Wonderful Christmas

I chose this because it is a good example of a cover that is far superior to the original. Paul McCartney's version is depressingly Maudlin and derivative, but this take on The Shins has a stroke and a twist, but it's still wonderfully cheerful.

Harvey Danger - Sometimes you have to work for Christmas (sometimes)

Most famous for the Flagpole Sitta, which was used for the Peep Show theme tune, this Harvey Danger song sounds too true to those involved in the endless work of retail. While the music is quite direct and reserved, in the background Sometimes, You Have to Work on Christmas is a classic festive song of sadness, nostalgia, and nostalgia.

Advanced Base - Christmas in Dearborn

Owen Ashworth's music has always felt like it is duct tape, but always dazzling. Christmas in Dearborn uses simplicity to tell a deeply moving story of someone returning home for Christmas, and is steeped in nostalgic sadness but accepting that, to a degree, this is exactly what Christmas is.

Friends of the Year: Snow Superpixels 92

Ir Friends is the side project of Alexi Barrow, lead singer of the ever-brilliant Johnny Foreigner. This beautiful, low-fidelity song appeared on his 2016 EP on Whistle, for Christmas. This is a deliciously rhythmic song driven by spinning synths and 8-bit power, but also full of charm.

The knife - Christmas reindeer

No doubt the strangest song on this list but also, perhaps, the best. Christmas Reindeer shows how great Karim Dreijer songwriting is, as he reconfigures the darkness of tone, instrumentation and words to create strangely beautiful pop music. The brutal, hypnotic drums, the quivering voice, the enigmatic lyrics, all had to be combined to create something intensely esoteric that feels overwhelmingly arcane. But it doesn't, it feels like a pop song, because that's what it is.