We’ll admit it: we’re having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this time around. Don’t get us wrong, though. We’re not starting to hate the very notion of Christmas like, say, Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch or Burgermeister Meisterburger or the Kranks or, um, Oliver Cromwell. Maybe it’s because the economy has made our usual yearly descent into unbridled consumerism—not to mention our usual yearly descent into unbridled alcoholism—financially unfeasible. We’ve spent the past 12 months squandering our income on junk like mortgages, car payments, and paying back student loans, so we have nothing left to spend on the true necessities, like rum, eggnog, tinsel, and those little chocolate-covered marshmallow Santas. Fortunately for us, we happen to be professional music critics, which means that music is the one thing we don’t have to pay for. (No one else pays for music anymore, either, but that’s a whole other story.) This year, everyone on our list is getting the promotional CDs we didn’t want to keep. Here’s hoping our buddy Ferg finds some use for a stack of Hercules and Love Affair, Sixx:A.M., Bad Meets Evil, 311, and Beady Eye discs.

In the hope of recapturing some of that holly-jolly feeling we’ve been sorely missing, however, we’ll be keeping all the Christmas stuff for ourselves. We’ve already listened to it all, and sorted it into three piles. Here’s how our rating system works: the good stuff gets a wrapped gift, the so-so stuff gets a pair of tighty-whiteys, and anything slugged with a Charlie Brown tree is awful enough to make the Three Wise Men want to return their gifts to Frankincense “R” Us.

Michael Bublé
Christmas (Warner)
Never mind Christmas—at this point Michael Bublé has the entire world by the sugarplums. The homegrown crooner not only sells out hockey rinks, he’s been known to donate the take at the gate to charity (hello, B.C. Children’s Hospital!). He gets invited to perform on Saturday Night Live as a musical guest, and then acquits himself brilliantly in the show’s skits (witness his fake commercial spot on last Saturday’s Jimmy Fallon–hosted Xmas triumph). And he does as perfect a job as one could hope for on the chart-topping Christmas, a record that suggests everything Bublé touches these days turns to silver and gold, but mostly gold. The Burnaby superstar takes an old-school approach to time-tested classics like “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” and “Silent Night”, both of which are completely drenched in Bing Crosby–vintage strings. Famous for having a wicked sense of humour, Bublé also understands that there’s nothing wrong with getting a little cheeky, with “Blue Christmas” rendered as a Preservation Hall bump ’n’ grind, and a doo-wopped “White Christmas” (featuring Shania Twain) making you wonder who invited the 5 Neat Guys to the party. Hell, the dude not only caps the album off by wishing his fans a very merry Christmas, he sounds like he sincerely means it. And that, friends, is the definition of class, something that, sadly, Santa can’t bring you. You’ve either got it, like Bublé, or you don’t.
> Mike Usinger

Jackie Evancho
Heavenly Christmas (Sony)
It would be nice if she erred a little more on the classical side than on the pop side, but there’s no finding fault with the pure—and, yes, heavenly—voice of 11-year-old Jackie Evancho. But if you see my eyes start to water during her version of Howard Blake’s “Walking in the Air”, it’s just because I’ve been standing too close to the ol’ Yuletide fireplace.
> John Lucas

Ryan McAllister
Whiteout Christmas (Independent)
Now this is what you want—a Christmas disc that makes an effort. Especially on the original tune “My Name Is Blitzen”, a revisionist treatment of that over-hyped attention whore Rudolph, which McAllister treats with a Phil Spectorish Wall of Snow. The same perverse impulse is presumably behind his Daniel Lanois–shaped deconstruction of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”.
> Adrian Mack

Scott Weiland
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Rhino)
This album reaches its nadir early, when the Stone Temple Pilots frontman slurs his way through “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” like a drunken hobo who refuses to relinquish the microphone at a karaoke bar, no matter how many coasters get pitched at his head. In fairness, Weiland’s performance on the title track isn’t so bad, but by that point the record’s half over and you already want to strangle him with a reindeer bridle.
> John Lucas

The Muppets
A Green and Red Christmas (Universal)
I’m not entirely sure who the Muppets are, but, holy Christ, can these cats play, many of the tunes on A Green and Red Christmas swinging like Frank Sinatra after a half-dozen rumballs and a fifth of Johnnie Walker Blue. Here are some random observations: based on his jazzbo lingo in “Man With the Bag”, the dude known simply as Floyd seems to smoke a lot of pot; if what we hear in “Christmas Smorgasbord” is any indicator, the Swedish Chef either has meatballs in his mouth or is severely mentally disabled; and the soft-rocking title track lasciviously suggests that some horny toad named Kermit has a major thing for chicks who are unrepentant pigs.
> Mike Usinger

Justin Bieber
Under the Mistletoe (Universal)
At the risk of pissing off Beliebers (who would no doubt exact their revenge by leaving a flaming bag of reindeer poop on the Straight’s doorstep), the most fun moment on Under the Mistletoe isn’t anything Biebs himself does. Instead, the best bit is the wicked, and far too brief, rapid-fire cameo by Busta Rhymes on “Drummer Boy”. Everything else is good listening for the 14-year-old girls in your life, but you’ll be glad when they head to the mall and you can put Bing Crosby back on.
> John Lucas

Various Artists
Country Christmas (Sony)
Normally, country music and Xmas tunes go together about as well as Hank Williams Jr., Barack Obama, and an open bar. What a surprise, then, that the double-album Country Christmas gets things at least half right, with Disc 1 featuring old-school greats Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton (who performs “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” instead of, sadly, “Go Tell It on the Mountains”). As for Disc 2, we get new-country tools like Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, and Brooks & Dunn, all of whom stink as bad as the idea of inviting a bombed Hank Williams Jr. to the White House for Martin Luther King Day.
> Mike Usinger

John Rutter
The Colours of Christmas (Universal)
The arrangements might strike classical purists as a tad saccharine, but purists would also argue that you shouldn’t sully eggnog with anything other than Jamaican rum. Well, purists be damned! The English composer and conductor leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bach Choir in rich, warm readings of traditional carols. Give it a spin while you tear into your presents on Christmas morning, and spike your first nog of the day with a double shot of Kahlúa. As everyone knows, when it comes to the holidays, it’s never too early to start in on the serious drinking.
> John Lucas

Carole King
A Holiday Carole (Hear Music)
A Holiday Carole plays out like a mellow-yellow artifact from an era when puke-orange shag carpets were hip, macramé beanbag chairs were must-have living-room accessories, and Pet Rocks were the hot gift of the season. Still, if you’ve had your ass happily glued to the same coffeehouse seat since ’73, get ready to bliss out to smooth faves like “My Favorite Things”.
> Mike Usinger

Various Artists
Now! Christmas 5 (EMI)
If this is what Christmas sounds like now (I mean, Now!), then I want Santa’s magic sleigh to take me back to a time before someone thought it was a good idea to let Maroon 5 cover John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and Rascal Flatts decided that we needed one more version of “Jingle Bell Rock”.
> John Lucas

Julian Koster
The Singing Saw at Christmastime (Merge)
Got a gaggle of freeloading relatives who sit there sucking back Mount Gay Extra Old Rum and Avalon Dairy Eggnog long past the point when they should have pulled on their reindeer hats and hit the fucking road? Clear them off the couch by weirding them out with The Singing Saw at Christmastime, on which Julian Koster gives seasonal standards the spartan hillbilly treatment with his crazily creepy saw. That’s right, an old-fashioned carpenter’s saw, which sounds like a cross between a theremin and an alien spaceship transmission. This is what that bald, inbred kid from Deliverance plays by candlelight in his dirt-floor shack while wrapping up pickled squirrels, jugs of bathtub moonshine, and a squealing Ned Beatty for Xmas.
> Mike Usinger

Harry Connick, Jr. Trio
Music From The Happy Elf (Marsalis Music)
An animated Christmas special with an oddly downbeat score by a jazz piano trio? Sounds familiar, right? Well, The Happy Elf is no A Charlie Brown Christmas, but Harry Connick Jr. (along with bassist Neal Caine and drummer Arthur Latin) provides music that’s on par with what Vince Guaraldi created for the Peanuts specials.
> John Lucas

Cadence
Cool Yule (Independent)
With their glee-club grins and their spiffy sweater-vest fashion sense, the members of Cadence look an awful lot like SCTV’s 5 Neat Guys. But instead of renditions of “She Does It”, “Mom Pressed the Crease in My Chinos”, and “Patsy Has the Largest Breasts in Town”, these four neat guys do a cappella versions of the usual assortment of seasonal standards. The highlight, though, is “The Carpenter’s Carol”, an original by group member Aaron Jensen that shows just how tight Cadence’s harmonies are.
> John Lucas

Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler
This Is Christmas (Infectious)
Jumping from Dick Dale sugar pop (“Christmas Day [I Wish I Was Surfing]”) to ragged big-city folk (“See You Next Year)”, the duo of Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler takes an approach to the holidays that’s more Sufjan Stevens than Bing Crosby. Highlights include “Jesus the Reindeer”, “(Don’t Call Me) Mrs. Christmas”, and, best of all, “Zombie Christmas”, the latter suggesting that Emmy the Great and Wheeler are just a tad confused. After all, everyone knows that Jesus claws his way back from the dead on Easter.
> Mike Usinger

Various Artists
With Bells On (Light Organ)
It’s hard to get down on the holidays without coming across as a miserable, subhuman Grinch. Hands up if you’d like to cock-punch Fear’s Lee Ving for writing “Fuck Christmas”, if only because, every time you hear it, you feel like stomping the shit out of a Forever Fun Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Bumble’s Cave Scenic Display Set ($17.99 on Amazon!). Give Vancouver’s Light Organ Records credit, then, for unearthing a batch of seasonal songs that pull off this difficult trick. Frederick gets things off to an authentically ’80s start with the deliciously chilly synth-waver “Artificial Christmas”, which contains the great lines “Everybody knows that you can’t buy love with gifts/But I’ll love you even better if you buy my fucking lipstick.” From there, Vancougar reminds you why you hate coming home for the holidays with “Dysfunctional Family Christmas”, and Jody Glenham is more Darklands-era Jesus and Mary Chain than Jesus, Mary, and Joseph with the marinated-in-reverb “Christmas List (Falala)”. Add gold-star tracks from Fake Shark–Real Zombie!, Portage & Main, and Dead Ghosts, and you’ve got the perfect stocking stuffer for that pissy-about-Christmas) local indie-rock fan on your list.
> Mike Usinger

Tony Bennett
The Classic Christmas Album (Sony)
As classy a guy as he is, Tony Bennett isn’t without his missteps on The Classic Christmas Album. In doing his best to wring every bit of drama out of “Christmas Time Is Here”, the 85-year-old icon sounds like he’s straining to pass a mature Scotch pine, while the soft-jazz rendition of “Silver Bells” will make you feel like you’re drinking Lucerne eggnog and Newfie screech at a Chilliwack Holiday Inn. But when Bennett is on, he’s almost untouchable. Check out “Deck the Halls”, where he’s joined by epically cinematic strings and a battery-of-angels choir, and marvel at the majesty of an old pro.
> Mike Usinger

She & Him spent Christmas Eve looking up old Scandinavian recipes for reindeer stew with kålrot and lingonberries.

She & Him
A Very She & Him Christmas (Merge)
What the hell went wrong here? Not only is doe-eyed Zooey Deschanel too cute for mere mortals, but she can also sing the shit out of a Christmas song. Remember her melting Buddy’s heart while singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in Elf? Teamed here with New Wave Hookers–era Peter North doppelgänger M. Ward (she’s the She, he’s the Him), Deschanel comes off more off-putting than endearing, the two seemingly shooting for a breezy-yet-sophisticated, cocktail-nation retro-charm. Instead, tracks like “Sleigh Ride” and “Silver Bells” find them trying so hard to be studiously cool that they are no fun. Next time, kids, before you hit the studio, you might want to loosen up a bit with a couple of Goldschläger shots and a bong hit or two of Christmas Kush.
> Mike Usinger

Paul Anka
Songs of December (Universal)
Okay, I get it. Veteran crooner Paul Anka wanted to make an intimate Christmas record, so he (presumably) used the template of Frank Sinatra’s down-tempo and decidedly downbeat 1950s “concept albums”, like In the Wee Small Hours. All well and good, but Sinatra was singing about romantic dissolution, and Anka’s turning “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” into a broken-man dirge. The only thing more jarring would be catching Hermey the elf dosing himself with lidocaine.
> John Lucas

London Chamber Orchestra
Midwinter’s Eve: Music for Christmas (Sony)
The LCO gets bonus points for venturing beyond the usual overplayed pieces; you don’t often hear “The Wexford Carol” or “Moita Festa” while elbowing your fellow shoppers in the ribs to grab the last LeapFrog LeapPad off the shelf at Toys “R” Us. In fact, this whole collection is beautifully subdued, making it better fodder for quietly contemplating how you pissed away yet another year than for indulging in frantic, last-ditch merry-making.
> John Lucas

Michel Legrand
Noël! Noël!! Noël!!! (Universal)
Holy symphonic brilliance, baby Jesus. Legendary French composer Michel Legrand gets plenty of help on an instant classic, the guest list at the 79-year-old’s Xmas party including U.K. crooner Jamie Cullum (“Let It Snow”), opera-loving pop tart Rufus Wainwright (“Noël d’espoir”), and still-smoking sex kitten Carla Bruni (“Jolis sapins”). Here’s wagering that all involved in this beautifully imagined, mesmerizingly tasteful project showed up at the studio in the season’s finest formal wear. And that includes the usually half-naked lizard-made-from-shoe-leather known as Iggy Pop, who dials things way down for a too-cool-for-your-school version of “Little Drummer Boy”. If you can’t afford tickets to Paris this Christmas, Noël! Noël!! Noël!!! is the next best thing.
> Mike Usinger

Chicago
O Christmas Three (Chicago Records II)
Got a certain someone on your list who’s still strutting around in nut-hugging French-cut flares, mile-high platform shoes, and a floral-print polyester shirt that would give Shaun Cassidy a raging erection? As sure as that lucky fellow’s luxurious head of hair is feathered like the wings of a majestic bird, he’s going to love the favourites of Christmas as rendered by ’70s survivors Chicago. All that’s missing from this release is a giant mound of virgin snow, preferably Colombian-flavoured.
> Mike Usinger

Various Artists
XO for the Holidays Vol IV (X0)
This is pretty good for an oddball collection of artists you’ve never heard of. Rags & Ribbons’ prog-meets-the-new age take on “Greensleeves” is the wackiest track, although a version of Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas” (by Pictures of Then) is also enjoyable and puzzlingly straight-faced in roughly equal measure. In either case, you’ll be inspired to reach for the seasonal, candy cane–shaped bong. Indeed, the whole thing is worth streaming on the big day, at www.xopublicity.com/.
> Adrian Mack

Hawksley Workman
Full Moon Eleven
Hawksley Workman is—God bless him—famous in Canada for being the kind of hypertalented oddball who flies his own freak flag. That Full Moon Eleven’s back-cover photo has him sitting cross-legged in front of an outdoor Christmas tree with a Gibson Flying V is a hint the record isn’t for traditionalists. The piano-propelled "Learn How to Knit" finds Workman offering to make woollen mittens, cigarette holders, and airplanes for presents, and the guitar-driven pop-rocker "Common Cold" pays tribute to vitamin C and heinously swollen glands. Full Moon won’t give you the warm-and-fuzzies, but it will provide a nice break from the saccharine shit you’ve been deluged with in elevators and drugstores since November 2.
> Mike Usinger

Glee Cast
Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 2
Outside of the context of the show, any song from Glee is a dodgy proposition. The two original numbers here are particularly dire, with "Christmas Eve With You" the worst offender, being a series of clichés strung together like a garland of stale popcorn. But Amber Riley (Mercedes) powers her way through "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in fine form, Heather Morris (Brittany) gives "Christmas Wrapping" just enough sass, and Darren Criss and Chris Colfer (Blaine and Kurt) make "Let It Snow" gay in every possible sense.
> John Lucas

Various Artists
KIDZ BOP Christmas
The cover art is emblazoned with the warning "Sung by Kids for Kids", which, truthfully, seems like false advertising. The "kids" in question are either hideously emotionless, spayed-and-neutered cyborgs, or they’ve been Auto-Tuned enough to make T-Pain sound like a hideously hung-over GG Allin. For Christ’s sake, someone think of the children, and not the ones "singing" these steaming piles of shit.
> Mike Usinger

Jersey Boys
Season’s Greetings: A Jersey Boys Christmas
For the uninitiated (like me before I looked it up on Wikipedia), Jersey Boys is a Broadway musical about Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons. It has nothing to do with those douchesacks from Jersey Shore. If you want an actual 4 Seasons Christmas album, one is available. On the other hand, if you’re hankering for a bunch of overproduced show tunes bearing no resemblance to the act that supposedly inspired this whole enterprise, this is it.
> John Lucas

Meaghan Smith
It Snowed
There’s cute and then there’s cutesy. The difference is that cuteness is an inherent quality whereas cutesy-ness smacks of effort. A puppy is cute. A puppy with a snowflake sweater, Santa hat, and reindeer antlers on is trying too hard. If you want your Christmas to sound like an Old Navy commercial, adorkable Haligonian Meaghan Smith has got you covered. To some, that will read as a hearty recommendation. To those of us who would rather not be suffocated by cotton candy or drowned in Lyle’s Golden Syrup, it’s a dire warning.
> John Lucas

CMT
The Gift of Giving (Sony)
Christmas is supposed to be a time to think heavenly thoughts: dancing sugarplums, first snowfalls, flying fairies, and the birth of sweet baby Jesus. Funny, then, that shit-kickers like Gord Bamford and Luke Bryan can make it seem like an endless hell on fucking earth. Consider baritone bozo Dean Brody actually having the chestnuts to sing, with a straight face, "Poppa and daddy trading stories of hunting seasons gone by" in the maudlin "The Woodshed Is Full". Somewhere in heaven a maudlin Hank Williams is working his way through a 40-pounder of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey whisky, genuinely sorry for what he’s done.
> Mike Usinger