I’m pretty sure I am an anomaly.  Since Sufjan Stevens has come onto my radar every one who I have ever heard speak about him vehemently swings from devout liking to pretty vehement disregard.  Not walk the same path of a take or leave it attitude toward him like I do.  He’s prett much background music to me...except for this song.
“Christmas Unicorn,” a twelve and half minute anti-epic pop song that starts off in a folk style and builds to an electronic, symphonic climax. The album presents many styles of Christmas songs, including Bach chorales, hymns, original songs, “Jingle Bells,” and a New Order cover. This is a post-modern observation giving us all the ways expressions of Christmas are valid, no matter how commercial or humble. “Christmas Unicorn” synthesizes all these styles through the metaphor of the unicorn which I pretty take as a way of saying “hey, I think we’re all special.”   ​

My best friend when I was eleven in 1987 was Tamara.  Both of our Dad’s were in the Navy and so we both were experienced with ourselves and our friends moving away to different locales throughout the world when our parents received new active duty assignments to Navy stations positioned globally.  My family had moved to the Bay Area that year and being ten going on eleven, and just starting that awkward puberty faze, my Mom, in her infinite wisdom, decided that to help me with making friends that I would be part of a Girl Scout Troop when entering middle school.  Needless to say, I was expecting to no longer be a scout after elementary school as I thought it was not a cool thing to do in the 6th grade. Fortunately in Troop 1337,  where I pledged to live by the Girl Scout Law, Tamara was also a member. We got on quick and were way too cool for this Girl Scout stuff but were stuck at our mother’s whims.  Turned out both of our Dads were stationed the same aircraft carrier that was deployed out to sea for 9 months, so it was just our Moms at home.
Our Moms chauffeured us after our weekly Girl Scout meetings and every weekend to locales that pre-teen girls liked to hang out at.  You know, like, malls and pizza parlours and music stores and the beach.   I LOVED being able to hang out and play over at Janelle’s house.  While my Mom played the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp and Steely Dan through the car stereo; Tamara’s mom was getting down to the likes of Prince, Chaka Khan, and Rick James.  
Come holiday time that year, her Mom was driving us around the East Bay Hills one evening to look at all the hella badass Christmas lights up there. Holiday music in my world up until that point had been the likes Barbara Streisand, Bing Crosby, and Willie Nelson Christmas albums plus Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and Wham’s “Last Christmas” (which will have it’s own posts in a few days coming up). The music playing through in the car that evening was a tape of a really soulful man’s voice singing standards like “Winter Wonderland and “Jingle Bells.”  I had heard those songs a million times but this was funkier.

I asked her Mom who this was singing on the album we were listening to and she answered something along the line of "my dear, this is the Reverend Al Green."  Then the last song of the tape came on and it was “Feels Like Christmas."  Oh man, I giggled and bounced around in the back seat of that car when I first heard it.  Even then I had a thing for a swinging, shuffled four on the floor.  I begged my Mom to buy that cassette, "White Christmas," the next day and she did.     
Kitschy disco strings, intimate crooning, the nasal twists, the syncopated entrances and exits, the sudden leaps into falsetto...it’s all there.
​​

It may well be the starkest festive song ever recorded.
"Things Fall Apart" was written and recorded by Cristina Monet-Palaci for the ZE Records Christmas compilation of 1981 (this is the second of 3 songs from that record label on this list...they really released some great music). Her biography on the Ze Records website notes Richard Strange's spot-on assessment of her: "In a sassier, zestier, brighter, funnier world, Cristina would have been Madonna."
Trust me, this ain’t no “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer", instead it's an anguished tale of the festive season spent amongst vacuous city-dwellers, heartbroken but unsurprised by another failed romance with a commitment-phobic lover ("He said he couldn't stand in my way, it's wrong. "Way of what?", I asked, but he was gone"). Cristina, bless her, recounts her doomed attempts to find a little Christmas cheer with “Things Fall Apart.” The song begins with  a musical box melody that fades into a brittle reverb before the guitars begin adding their acid into the mix.  Her fatalistic vocals then start their laser focus on deadpan observations on how she is fated to careen through life never fitting in with “the crowd” and living “alone again, alone.” Underneath it all, the nihilistic rhythm section purrs like a cat waiting to pounce, probably just like the cat Cristina heads home to feed. "I caught a cab back to my flat. And wept a bit. And fed the cat". Merry FUCKING Christmas!
A very sad and poignant footnote is that Cristina died on April 1st, 2020 of COVID compilations.  I wonder what would have happened if the sassier, zestier, brighter, funnier world that Strange referenced had existed.  Would we have lost this person and so many others in the United States this year?

Big Richard D. James fan here.  I've heard stories of his goodwill towards and fans and it seems so fitting he's made music with a holiday theme.  Before I talk about why I like this specific song, I want to just relay a quick story as to just one of many reasons why Aphex Twin is awesome. 
In the mid 1990s I had a friend who was interning at Capitol Records who was constantly bugging her supervisor to put her in contact with some of the artists on the label.  Well, for some reason, my friend's supervisor had RDJ's personal email on a post-it note on his desk and my friend swiped it and put it in her pocket.  My friend then, like a stalker, emailed Aphex Twin and gushed about how much she loved him AND he emailed her back.  That was a start of a 4+ year email only friendship they fostered which included him faxing her binary code art at one point which she still has.  I've heard from other sources that he is hella approachable, also.  Gotta love a mad genius, nice guy.
So back to why this song is #11 in my countdown.
​There's a moment in XMAS_EVET10 that occurs at exactly at 07:35:300, a tight mid-tone pan/gong sound. That voice makes total sense in that moment, exists only at that moment and appears absolutely nowhere else in the track. It's not flashy, it's not hooky, it's almost nothing.... But for whatever reason, the way it sits in the track and asserts itself as completely necessary, just does it for me. I'm not sure I can explain it better than that.
I listen to this track and wait close to eight whole minutes for this tiny little tone to set me off as big as any singalong chorus from any other artist out there.
​

I've always been a bit confused on the whole 12 days of Christmas thing because it is the days from December 25-January 6 and in my silly brain I think it makes more sense for it to be the countdown to Christmas, which means it starts today. So welcome to Sappho's 12 days of Christmas holiday song countdown where I just actually lay out my top twelve all time holiday songs in ranking order with a little tidbit about why I love it. 
On my version of the 12th day of Christmas, my #12 favorite holiday song of all time is...drum roll..."My Silent Night" by Lisi.
This is one of three songs on my list released ZE Records Official
on various Christmas records. I love how the slowed down electro beat comes in right at the lyrics of 'Round yon virgin Mother and Child.' I'm sure I am not alone when I reflect back to being a kid and finding that line amusing and exciting because it contained the word VIRGIN. It seems fitting to hear it be emphasized in this dark rendition of 'Silent Night.'
'My Silent Night' was recorded by Lisi aka Lisette Linares and was released on ZE Xmas Record Reloaded 2004; obviously by the title it was released in 2004. Just 3 years later, Lisi was a contestant on Survivor: Fiji (Season 14). Wow! She must have some stories. She lasted 21 days on Survivor before being voted off the island. Not only is this a great song but there is a lesson to be learnt from this: no matter what you are currently doing, you can always apply to be on Survivor because they are ALWAYS actively recruiting since they are like on Season 43 which is insane and they must be running out of eligible people at some point. Follow your dreams. ​