Happy Monday, folks! It’s the week of Christmas, so here’s a playlist full of some of my favorite Christmas songs.

1. Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”: Just the absolute best Christmas song ever. You can keep your Wham! and your Mariah Carey, just leave me Darlene Love.
2. She & Him, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”: This song seems like it was tailor-made for this band. Zoey Deschanel just has a lovely voice made for this kind of song.
3. The Eagles, “Please Come Home For Christmas”: The guitar work in this song always gets to me. It’s very well-done and Don Henley sounds particularly impassioned.
4. The Royal Guardsmen, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”: Is it technically a Christmas song? Not really. Is Christmas the only time I listen to it because it was on a tape of Christmas songs we listened to constantly when I was a kid? Yes.
5. Elvis Presley, “Blue Christmas”: I’m not much of an Elvis fan, but I really dig this song. It’s just fun.
6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Christmas All Over Again”: Speaking of fun Christmas songs, of course Tom Petty turns in one for the books. It’s just a good time from start to finish.
7. Neko Case, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”: “Charlie, I’m pregnant,” the song begins, and just gets worse and sadder from there. Neko doesn’t even try to sing it like Tom Waits, instead making it all her own and turning this into one of the absolute saddest Christmas songs I’ve ever heard.
8. My Morning Jacket, “X-Mas Curtain”: Just what, exactly, is a Christmas Curtain? I imagine something involving snowmen and giant snowflakes and maybe a Santa Claus, but I honestly don’t know, and I’m not sure this song makes it any clearer.
9. Andrew Bird, “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas”: I love playing this one on guitar, and have even halfway managed to play the solo for it. It’s lovely.
10. The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York”: It’s a dreary picture of a dreary town in a dreary decade, but it feels hopeful despite all that. Kinda reminds me in a small way of the Mountain Goats’ “This Year,” with its defiant tone and resistance to the turning of the world.