As the holiday season sneaks up on us, you might start to hear some of those classic Christmas songs you’ve heard a million times before. They’re catchy, overly cheerful, annoying, and they get stuck in your head far too easily. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of these songs if you couldn’t tell. That’s why I wanted to find a different genre of Christmas music. I just combined my favorite genre with Christmas and I found a plethora of punk Christmas songs.

Now, I tried really hard to like these. I started with the classics such as, The Ramones “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)”, and The Vandals Christmas album Oi to the World. The Ramones were probably the first to do the whole Christmas-song-thing, and they managed to not make it sound too much like a Christmas song (unlike many others I will mention) which I enjoy. It’s not the best song in the world but it’s The Ramones,  you kind of know what you’re in for.

Now… The Vandals. I cannot confidently say I have ever liked The Vandals past their early albums like Peace Thru Vandalism and a select few songs off of When in Rome Do as the Vandals. So when I found out they had an entire Christmas album I was startled to say the least, and I suppose that’s the correct judgement.

This is under no means a great album. It’s not terrible but it’s definitely not my favorite. This album is a very satirical album that’s heavily against Christmas. The actual punk songs on this album take on a more Ska feel but they do not accomplish it well. My personal favorite off the album is the track “Hang Myself from the Tree” and it isn’t even a punk song but instead an acoustic ballad about how terrible Christmas is. 

But why is that album so critical of Christmas? That can be easily answered if we knew some things about punk ideologies. A large chunk of punks are extremely anti-establishment and anti-capitalism. And what is Christmas? A time where people give far too much money to huge corporations. This message is way more important today than it was then. Today, our favorite jelly bellied, white bearded man has been replaced by a bald billionaire named Jeff Bezos.

However, most punks still celebrate the traditions of Christmas with their friends and family (that’s why we have punk Christmas albums). There are a few however that don’t celebrate due to a lot of punks being hardcore against religion, but many still celebrate the holidays secularly.