The last time I did a Christmas playlist, I included my favourite Christmas music. This isn’t quite the opposite of that, but instead it’s 10 novelty Christmas songs that wouldn’t really make sense to play at any other time of year. As per usual, you can listen along on Spotify – many of these songs are mercifully short and so the whole playlist is less than half an hour.
- “Proper Crimbo” by Bo Selecta. Bo’ Selecta! was a British TV sketch show in the 2000s, which, at the time, I found hilarious but it really hasn’t aged well – especially its blackface depiction of Mel B, amongst others. This Christmas single was released at the height of its popularity where its creator, Leigh Francis, parodied Craig David, and was a #4 hit in 2003. You may know Leigh Francis better as Keith Lemon.
- “Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo” by South Park. It turns out there’s a whole album of South Park Christmas music, if you like that sort of thing. It also peaked at #4, in the 1999 Christmas singles charts.
- “Gift Vouchers” by The Lancashire Hotpots. A brand new song for 2025! It’s all about what to get for someone when you don’t know what present to buy for them.
- “Once Upon a Christmas Song” by Peter Kay. The 2000s were indeed a weird time for comedy, as Peter Kay dragged himself up to play Geraldine McQueen in a parody of TV talent shows. It reached #5 in the 2008 Christmas singles chart.
- “We Built This City (On Sausage Rolls)” by LadBaby. In 2018, LadBaby became the first YouTuber to get a Christmas #1 single, and this was it – a parody of the Starship song. This was a feat repeated for four subsequent years, and so LadBaby has now had more Christmas #1 singles in the UK than any other band or artist, beating even The Beatles. At least they were all charity singles for the Trussell Trust.
- “Last Christmas” by Crazy Frog. Remember the days when people would pay to buy a ringtone? And yet, nowadays my phone is permanently on silent. This is a truly terrible cover version of the Wham! classic, the original of which finally made it to Christmas #1 in 2023 (after the rein of LadBaby) and again last year.
- “Jingle Bells (Goat Edition)” by ActionAid. It’s Jingle Bells, but made up of samples of screaming goats. Indeed, there’s a whole album of them, from the charity ActionAid who raises funds to provide goats to poor families in third world countries.
- “The Very First Christmas” by Spongebob Squarepants. This song is awful. Sorry (not sorry).
- “The Night Santa Went Crazy” by Weird Al Yankovic. We can’t have a playlist of novelty songs without a bit of Weird Al. This is one of his earlier songs, from 1996.
- “Present Face” by Garfunkel and Oates. This is a song all about the face you have to make when opening a present that you actually don’t like, but don’t want to offend the person giving it to you.
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