My fiancé and I both worked retail for a long time, so creating a Christmas playlist that doesn't abruptly fill one or both of us with murderjuice is a complicated undertaking.
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It's easy, just avoid anything that remotely mentions Christmas.
But more seriously, having been a fellow retail sufferer, I recommend Josh Groban's Christmas album. No annoying pop crap, just classy, non-glurgy songs beautifully sung in a magnificent voice.
I hear you. I also am in the same head space. By the time Christmas came around I was done with it. It has taken years and years to be able to listen to Christmas music again. 😉
I love how each retail working experience has its own horrifying soundtrack. I can't stand modern pop Christmas songs. But I will do just about anything else. The weirder the better! Celtic instrumental to Veggie Tales to Twisted Sister.
That is awesome. Sounds like a little bias might creep in.
For movies - we used a data formula to pick the Top 100 Christmas movies - check it out https://www.top100christmasmovies.com
To the tune of "Winter Wonderland"
Lacey things, the wife is missing
Didn't ask, for her permission
I'm wearing her clothes
Her silk panty hose
Walking round in women's underwear...
Go for baroque! A mix of Corelli (Christmas Concerto), JS Bach (lots of chorales and cantatas), and, of course Fred Handel (the obvious, plus plenty of other good stuff) will calm the seething seasonal rage so many of us feel right now.
This and another playlist called "A Punk Folk Christmas" has been on my rotation this year. There's a lot of really good Christmas music out there if you look, but people only play, like, the same 10 songs. My current favorite x-mas song is "Slow Jam for Christmas" by the Staxx Brothers.
I completely understand! I worked at the GAP for 20 years. This time of year is still hard for music even though i haven’t worked retail for 15 years. I find myself listening to chorale music and classical music christmas.
One year I went to the Disney Store at the mall to get a Fantasia Art coffee table book for my mom. I stood in line for 45 minutes and they were playing carols on the PA. Xmas carols sung by what sounded like tone deaf 5-year-olds. It was cute for about 7 secs & quickly became the Water Torture.
Immensely relatable. Worked retail through my early adulthood, & I can barely stand X-mas holiday music on the day of much less tolerate it as the commercial aspect of the holiday creeps earlier in the year.
I turn to Vince Guaraldi Trio's Charlie Brown Xmas album as a tolerable option if pressed.
Make an international playlist. A lot of nations have their own carols and holiday songs. Ukrainian are very good (just avoid Schedryk cause you know it). Ukraine has its own tradition of caroling (Kolyada) so we have a lot of original holiday songs. I’m sure there are many other similar cultures.
I submit for your consideration, a recent album called Fidelity Low: Yuletide by Deppisch. It's on most streaming platforms and bandcamp. Jazzy lofi-ish covers and mashups of older Christmas songs. I've had it on repeat.
My wife has worked retail for 30 years. She used to bitch when I played Christmas music but came to realize how much I love it. So now she doesn't say much when it plays but just smiles and bears it (like she does at the store with asshole customers she wants to strangle).
Sirius XM channel 17 is Jimmy Fallon Holiday. Lots of unique artists. Also the DJ Kascade put out a Christmas album a few years ago that is really good.
I worked in retail for 11 years and loved the run up to Christmas. The songs bring me happy memories. Anything that reminds me of the January sales however go fuck right off!
I owned a store that was CRAZY busy during Nov/Dec. This was before playlists.
My CD player had 5 Christmas and one non Christmas.
My favorites:
*Christmas Cocktails I & II
*Christmas-George Winston
*’Twas the Night Before ChristmasFred Waring & The Pennsylvanians
*A Charlie Brown Christmas
Ohhh, it’s retail trauma. I was wondering why I seem to hate Christmas music almost indiscriminately. I have to listen to obscure instrumentals or I get cranky.
When I worked at a clothing and home goods retailer, we had one cassette tape, played on a loop, every Christmas season for years. It took me quite awhile to recover from that Christmas song exhaustion, too.
Try focusing on some less common Christmas classics, or maybe even some instrumental jazz versions. Think Ella Fitzgerald or something a little more sophisticated. That should keep the murderjuice at bay!
In my retail days I managed to convince my store managers to give us at least 5 tracks every 4 hours off Joe Cool’s Blues by Wynton Marsalis / Ellis Marsalis Trio. It also seems to really relax the customers
My son and his husband have the same issue 😄 They used to both work in grocery stores, now, after 5 yrs at airport jobs, my son is back at the store, as a medical tech in the pharmacy, and REALLY ready for Dec 26!!
My sister has this, there are a couple Christmas songs, she will skip in the first three notes, she never lets them play long enough for me to figure out what songs, but she KNOWS! 😃
One year, it felt like every fifth song was a jingle bells version. You either wanted to bludgeon yourself or murder anyone who dared to talk to you. Which of course is hard when you work retail. Thankfully my current store breaks it up quite well.
I am somewhat Grinchy about the holidays. But I confess to liking The Philadelphia Eagles team members who made 3 Christmas albums. All the money for purchase and streaming goes to charities for kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xF38-9mO1w
I feel you. I worked restaurants for over a decade. I can’t listen to Motown without some sort of unbridled rage or anxiety. It’s a shame cause I do actually enjoy the Temptations music when it’s not one of the songs I heard on loop. 🙄😂
Christmas eve. 7pm. The store has just closed and us cashiers are cashing up. The manager and assistant manager are wrestling each other to destroy the jingle tape we had been listening to on repeat since October. But their PA had got there first.
I find that the true antique classics are still enjoyable because most of the songs they played in the 2010s in my store were weird pop Christmas songs. The hippo one haunts me.
32yrs of retail & counting here. Its tough. The secret is to replace some lyrics with naughty words (in your head of course). But there is little that can protect you from a jazz version of Jingle Bells, Chris Martins version of 2000 miles or any version of Santa Baby.
I feel you, two years night shift at a toy store, you never realize how loud that speaker is till it’s all quiet in the store. The chipmunks “Xmas time is here” is probably why I grind my teeth at night
"Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulter
"The Twelves Pains of Christmas" by Bob Rivers
"The Night Santa Went Crazy" by Weird Al Yankovic
"Father Christmas" by The Kinks
i think the worst part is you can't go and say, Hey think you could not play this specific song 35 times a day, so i could have one thing special to myself at Christmas. If i hear a fairy tale in New York, one more time. i might go Luigi on management.
I worked retail too my Christmas playlist now is what I didn't hear all day at work.
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Patsy and Elmo
Bob Rivers
Redneck Christmas albums
RuPaul
Twisted Christmas
Zydeco Christmas
I shot and edited our local ballet’s Nutcracker for years. Proves that no matter how fantastic a piece of music is, you can learn to hate it. Nutcracker music still makes me cringe.
I listen to Christmas music at strange times, but it’s almost NEVER traditional staples unless it’s an artist I Stan’s rendition. I’ve made many interesting Christmas playlists.
I (still manage to) like Imogen Heap’s “Just for Now” & sometimes Dar Williams’ “The Christians & the Pagans.” Even the latter is slightly too catchy for my ADHD brain.
They are grateful, of course.. But too shy to say it.. The elves would feel ever so loved, should humans find themselves creating new songs again. They want to hear about fall turning into winter, and winter into spring. They've hardly heard any about the other seasons. They know there is joy there.
The holiday PTSD resulting from retail employment is real. I did a short stint more than a decade ago in retail.
Nothing makes me want to run out a store's door more than Xmas music. I will spend less if there's Xmas music playing cause I want to get the fuck out of there.
‘To Warm the Winter Hearth’ by Windborne
‘Home for the Holidays’ by Schooner Fare
‘Holiday Songs and Lullabies’
Shawn Colvin
‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Vince Guaraldi
‘One More Drifter in the Snow’
Aimee Mann
Most of these NEVER get played in retail
If you like alt/indie/similar: Low (Just Like Christmas), Vashti Bunyan (Winter is Blue), Greg Lake (I Believe in Father Christmas), Raveonettes (Come on Santa, Christmas Ghosts), Gyorky's Zygotic Mynci (Christmas Eve), Kinks (Father Christmas), Cocteau Twins (Winter Wonderland, Frosty),
Pretenders (3000 Miles), Kate Bush (December Will Be Magic Again), Christina (Things Fall Apart), Fleet Foxes (Winter White Hymnal), Sharon Jones (several), Marvin Gaye (Purple Snowflakes), etc.
I was in a fancy foodie store and had to apologize to the clerk for the horrible Alvin and the Chipmunks song that she was forced to listen to all season.
From the day after Thanksgiving through the day after Christmas the only radio/streaming allowed near me is KING FM, the classical radio station out of Seattle.
I worked a few Xmases in a children's bookstore and Streisand's manic Jingle Bells recurred 3 times on the loop of holiday music that played all day, every day. I got to hear it maybe 15 or 20 times on a shift, it was in fact like going insane. I've never been the same.
I just had a flashback to my bartending days. An audible groan would fill the bar when Muzak would switch to holiday tunes, and yet now I listen to the holiday playlists on Spotify…but get to skip past the ugh tunes
Yep, my kids don’t understand why daddy doesn’t like Christmas music but they’re too young to get that daddy worked retail for 5 years and has Holly Jolly PTSD.
August Burns Red, BroJob, Eric Clapton, Vince Guardaldi Trio, Louis Prima, Bob Dylan, you can make a very varied playlist for Christmas pretty easily. I personally switched to Lofi Chrismas for its more background aestetic so its not so in my face all day. (Retail Worked)
I'm a fan of Tom Waits "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis," which is definitely not played in retail. Instead I have that Kelly Clarkson song in my head and I feel stabby.
Comments
But more seriously, having been a fellow retail sufferer, I recommend Josh Groban's Christmas album. No annoying pop crap, just classy, non-glurgy songs beautifully sung in a magnificent voice.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BPMN_p2mYio
Its about 6/7 silly songs
5/6
I genuinely hate Christmas music.
For movies - we used a data formula to pick the Top 100 Christmas movies - check it out https://www.top100christmasmovies.com
My personal favorite: https://youtu.be/N5iR6hSK-kw?si=PjydXtyToAm3ii8O
Lacey things, the wife is missing
Didn't ask, for her permission
I'm wearing her clothes
Her silk panty hose
Walking round in women's underwear...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9WWz95ripA
https://youtu.be/WINScMmrifk?si=DdL0JCpfqPIk8NFS
I turn to Vince Guaraldi Trio's Charlie Brown Xmas album as a tolerable option if pressed.
Gawd, I hate that song.
Fucking shit up with a double bass pedal
https://youtu.be/jwuoIjESGNA?si=pJr8s-PiPjRzEJs2
Having
A murderous christmas time.
My CD player had 5 Christmas and one non Christmas.
My favorites:
*Christmas Cocktails I & II
*Christmas-George Winston
*’Twas the Night Before ChristmasFred Waring & The Pennsylvanians
*A Charlie Brown Christmas
As for recommendations, my tastes are a bit everywhere and nerdy, but here are my faves from my playlist
The 🎄music (from Muzak) was AN HOUR LONG. We had to hear it 8 times a day for a month. There are a LOT of songs that "fill me with murderjuice."
Sleigh Ride, anyone?🤢🤮
If I have to hear Johnny Mathis sing about having fun with Mr. Snowman, one more time, it might get ugly.
it's EVERYTHING (and i loathe xmas music)
And now I have 0% “Christmas spirit”
And I loathe Xmas music.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4_7h679_sEY&si=jIb00O6ASLANc6TH
https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8?si=Kwvs76ud0qmnoZ4B
I also play a lot of old blues, jazz, and R&B versions that would t make a store Christmas list.
😁😇
Roots cofounder Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson shares his Christmas playlist
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/21/1144504741/questlove-roots-christmas-playlist
Weird Al has some dark Christmas songs ("The Night Santa Went Crazy" and "Christmas at Ground Zero"), but they're a way to know you're not alone.
Up to you.
"Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulter
"The Twelves Pains of Christmas" by Bob Rivers
"The Night Santa Went Crazy" by Weird Al Yankovic
"Father Christmas" by The Kinks
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Patsy and Elmo
Bob Rivers
Redneck Christmas albums
RuPaul
Twisted Christmas
Zydeco Christmas
Aside from the traditional playing of Christmas in Hollis, I'm down to 2.
RTJ - A Christmas F***ing Miracle & Durrty Goodz - Rasta Claus.
I (still manage to) like Imogen Heap’s “Just for Now” & sometimes Dar Williams’ “The Christians & the Pagans.” Even the latter is slightly too catchy for my ADHD brain.
https://bsky.app/profile/effinbirds.com/post/3lcipfymzyc2y
It might get stuck in your head though. Be careful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqXzZH31Mbw
Nothing makes me want to run out a store's door more than Xmas music. I will spend less if there's Xmas music playing cause I want to get the fuck out of there.
‘Home for the Holidays’ by Schooner Fare
‘Holiday Songs and Lullabies’
Shawn Colvin
‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Vince Guaraldi
‘One More Drifter in the Snow’
Aimee Mann
Most of these NEVER get played in retail
I hate it so much I won’t watch the opening scene of Almost Famous because of it.
I'm a dance teacher. I gotchu.
It’s a Holiday Soul Party, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings 👍🏼
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2dH7AeJ07TP5eqkAskR2EA?si=8m_jB91MTJ-ZdZAcdQOwBA
https://wfmu.org/archiveplayer/?show=135128&archive=245893