Christmas music is a niche game. A small number of artists have tried to make holiday records work, and only a fraction of them have actually pulled it off. Yet throughout the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, hundreds of musicians — some famous, some completely obscure — recorded full Christmas albums. The results ranged from genuinely charming to jaw-droppingly strange. The covers alone tell a story. Here’s a look at some of the most bizarre, unexpected, and unforgettable Christmas albums ever pressed to vinyl.
Mexican television icon Chabelo — real name Xavier López Rodríguez — released his holiday offering in 1981. Known for his long-running children’s TV show, Chabelo was a household name across Latin America, which made a Christmas album a natural, if still unusual, move. Around the same time, the holiday disco wave was still riding out its final years.
The early 1950s produced some genuinely odd holiday novelties. In 1953, ten-year-old Gayla Peevey recorded a song requesting a hippopotamus for Christmas. The song was released as a single and became a legitimate hit, eventually spawning a full album release. That same year, television star Jack Webb — best known as Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet — recorded his own spoken-word Christmas album.
Piano duo Ferrante & Teicher leaned into their futuristic sound for their 1956 Christmas record, promising “the sound of tomorrow — today.” It was an ambitious tagline for a holiday album. But perhaps no Christmas record has a stranger origin story than the one released by KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders. Yes, the fried chicken man made not one but two Christmas albums.
Colonel Sanders released his first Christmas record in 1968 and followed it up with another in 1969. Both were distributed through KFC locations, making them some of the earliest examples of fast food branded holiday merchandise. Meanwhile, regional sounds were finding their way into Christmas music too — Cajun Christmas albums became their own subgenre by the mid-1980s.
The late 1960s brought synthesizers into the Christmas album world. In 1969, Sy Mann released “Switched On Santa,” riding the wave of the massively popular “Switched-On Bach” by Wendy Carlos, which had introduced mainstream audiences to the Moog synthesizer just a year earlier. Mann applied that same electronic approach to holiday classics. By 1977, disco had taken over the Christmas record scene entirely.
The Montreal Sound’s “Christmas Disco Party” was exactly what it sounds like — traditional carols reworked with a four-on-the-floor beat. It wasn’t a one-off. Dozens of Christmas disco records were pressed in the late 1970s. More wholesome but equally eclectic, the Caroleers put out a straightforward carols album with a cover so dated it has looped back around to fascinating.
In 1983, Pac-Man was at the absolute peak of his cultural dominance. The character had already appeared in a Saturday morning cartoon, and a Christmas record was the logical next cash-in. The Pac-Man Christmas Story was released as a children’s holiday record, complete with a narrative featuring the game’s characters. It sits today as a perfectly preserved artifact of early 1980s pop culture licensing.
The Six Million Dollar Man — ABC’s hit sci-fi action series starring Lee Majors — also got the Christmas album treatment in 1978. It featured four holiday adventure stories starring Steve Austin, the bionic man. Actor Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood veteran since the 1920s, released his own Christmas record in 1979 under the title “Merry Merry Micklemas.”
The Three Suns — a popular easy listening trio active from the 1940s into the 1960s — released “A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas” in 1959. That same year, a children’s novelty record called “Nuttin’ For Christmas” was packaged alongside “Suzy Snowflakes” for the holiday market. Swedish Christmas albums also carved out their own corner of the holiday record world, with artists like Jularbo releasing seasonal material for Scandinavian audiences.
The Kingston Trio, one of the defining folk groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s, released “The Last Month of the Year” in 1960. It remains one of the more musically credible Christmas albums of the era. Back in the children’s novelty space, “Nuttin’ For Christmas” was originally recorded by Barry Gordon in 1955 and became one of the best-selling novelty singles of that decade.
Domenico Savino’s “Hi-Fi Christmas Party” was designed to show off high-fidelity stereo equipment — the album was as much a demonstration record as a holiday one. Jimmy Pelham’s 1966 release “Santa Watch Your Claws” took a more comedic approach, warning St. Nick about the hazards of chimney travel. Scandinavian holiday albums continued to fill shelves into the 1980s, with “God Jul” appearing in 1985.
Rapper Afroman released “A Colt 45 Christmas,” which blended his low-key comedic style with holiday themes. The title referenced his signature song and made no attempt to hide what kind of Christmas record it was. Ben Best’s 1971 “Happy Christmas Party” went in an entirely different direction, aiming squarely at the easy listening audience. Organist Lenny Dee put out “Happy Holi-Dee” in 1961, a pun-heavy title for a pun-heavy record.
Chipmunk-style novelty Christmas records were a reliable seller throughout the 1970s. “Charlie the Hamster’s Singing Christmas Songs” from 1975 followed the same format — sped-up voices singing holiday standards. William Hung, the American Idol contestant who became famous for his off-key audition in 2004, released “Hung for the Holidays” that same year his fame peaked. The album sold well enough to chart.
Swedish artist Thore Skogman released “Klappa På,” a Scandinavian holiday album with a cover that reflects the folk-influenced aesthetic of Nordic Christmas music. Raymond Lefèvre, the French easy listening conductor, put out his own Christmas record in 1968 — orchestral holiday arrangements aimed at the continental European market.
AC/DC released “Mistress for Christmas” as a single in 1990, taken from their album “The Razors Edge.” The cover art made the band’s intent perfectly clear. Children’s story records remained popular well into the 1980s, and “Exciting Christmas Stories” tapped into that market with dramatic holiday narratives pressed to vinyl for young listeners.
The Border Brass revisited the Tijuana sound for Christmas again in 1968, following a well-worn template of applying Latin brass arrangements to holiday standards. Hawaiian Christmas albums formed their own genre entirely — the “Hawaiian Style Christmas” record brought slack-key guitar and steel guitar to carols that had never previously featured either instrument.
“I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas” dates to 1949 and features a comic Swedish-American accent as its central gimmick — a style of humor that was common in mid-century American entertainment. The following year, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” had already been recorded as early as 1944 by Spike Jones, making it one of the earliest novelty Christmas singles on record. Exotica musician Korla Pandit — known for his turban and his Hammond organ performances — also released a Christmas record under his “Merry Xmas” title.
Bootsy Collins — bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic and one of the architects of funk music — released “Christmas Is 4 Ever” as his holiday offering. The cover is pure Bootsy: star-shaped glasses, glitter, and maximum visual overload. British comedian and singer Harry Secombe put out “Christmas Cheer,” an album squarely aimed at the UK family holiday market.
Generic Christmas carol compilations were mass-produced throughout the vinyl era. “Christmas Carols Album” is one of hundreds of budget-label holiday records that filled department store bins every November. Memphis rapper Indo G took a different approach entirely with “Christmas N’ Memphis,” applying Southern hip-hop production to the holiday season.
Cyndi Lauper released “Merry Christmas… Have a Nice Life” in 1998. The title alone signals her tongue-in-cheek approach, and the album blended traditional holiday songs with her signature pop style. Croatian singer Kićo also recorded a Christmas album — “Christmas With Kićo” — which found a devoted audience in the former Yugoslav market.
“Christmas Is For The Family” from 1958 was a sentimental, wholesome holiday offering aimed at the post-war American family market. The cover of “Last Christmas” — whether referring to the Wham! single or a later compilation — became one of the most widely recognized holiday images of the modern era. Death Row Records released “Christmas on Death Row” in 1996, featuring West Coast rap artists from Suge Knight’s roster delivering holiday tracks over gangsta rap production.
“Prettige Kerstdagen” — Dutch for “Merry Christmas” — is a Dutch-language holiday album that represents the strong tradition of regional Christmas records across Europe. Finally, “Christmas at the Devil’s House” rounds out this collection as one of the most provocatively titled holiday records ever released, proof that no corner of the music market — however dark its branding — was immune to the pull of a Christmas album.
