So Houston’s Official Christmas Music Station started hawking their wares literally a week after Hallowe’en because their tired holiday playlist seems to show up earlier every year. I did not tune my car stereo to it until after Thanksgiving, as is respectable, and of course when I did, it offered very little in the way of original or interesting music. If you’ve been reading my blog for more than a year, you know I offer up some of my own holiday playlist each December so make things more interesting for you.

So today we begin!

I always start with The Waitresses, because “Christmas Wrapping” is one of my favorite Christmas songs and also because for as long as my life is Way Too Busy this song will never not resonate with me hardcore. I have found, during this global pandemic, that I like being a homebody now and then, that I really appreciated not being able to run around for several hours every weekend Getting Things Done. But that doesn’t mean my life (during the school year, at least) has become truly less busy. The workload is epic, I’m sorry to say. But I’m surviving and grateful, in full recognition of the very specific kind of privilege I have that even allows me to grouse to my colleagues about how much extra work teaching in a pandemic is on top of a job that was already, most of the time, Too Much Work.

But I digress. Can you relate to being too busy even to enjoy things you might have been looking forward to sometimes?

The vaccines are on the way. (In the meantime, wear a mask and cover your nose with it, too, so that wearing it actually matters. Please. In related news, I will no longer be running errands at business where the employees fail this simple test of intelligence. Looking at you, closest UPS Store to my house.) We will, I hope and trust, get this virus under control. I hope that those of us who had mindlessly and needlessly cluttered lifestyles won’t revert back to them, but that we become more intentional about things. I’m certainly working on that.

And to pep things up a bit, have a danceable earworm! Happy holidays!

Oh, and P.S. — I still have a couple of spots left in this year’s series that I’ve been reserving for requests, so leave them in the comments if you have them.

Also, P.P.S. — If you want to see previous years’ playlists, click below on the first non-Waitresses day of each one and click through at the bottom to hear them all.
2013 — 12 Days of Christmas Music That Isn’t Awful
2014 — 12 Days of Christmas Music That Doesn’t Suck, 2014 Edition
2015 — 12 Days of Christmas Music That Won’t Turn Your Brain to Goo
2016 — 12 Days of Christmas Music to Improve Your Playlist
2017 — 12 Days of Earworm-Worthy Holiday Music
2018 — 12 Days of Christmas Music to Knock Your Socks Off
2019 — 12 Days of Seasonal Earworms You Need Right Now