Every Christmas, my sister and I fight about what Christmas songs to play on Christmas Day. While she wants to blast “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande, I want us to listen to the A Charlie Brown Christmas album on repeat for 12 hours until we all feel sufficiently nostalgic and melancholic. Christmas music does not have to be commercial hogwash; it can be haunting, political, ridiculous, and really moving. 

​Below, the Dazed team has curated an alternative Christmas playlist for those tired of the same old festive tunes.

SUFJAN STEVENS, “LONELY MAN OF WINTER” 

​“No other musician has dedicated themselves to the season so intensely, or better captured its exquisite blend of beauty and melancholy, than Stevens. “The Lonely Man of Winter” is an ostensibly sad song which I find quite cheerful, something I enjoy listening to when I’m back home and walking my mum’s dog, pretending I’m the protagonist in a bittersweet comedy-drama. This can be a brutal time of year to feel lonely, but for me, the song conveys a more peaceful, dignified kind of solitude. Nothing this beautiful could ever be truly depressing.” (JG)

SOPHIA STEL, “MISTLETOE”

“Dazed 100 alumni and creator of one of Dazed’s 20 best tracks of 2025, Sophia Stel, has captured everyone in the office’s hearts this year, and now she’s ready to smash them to pieces with her ethereal reimagining of Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe”, released last week. This one isn’t about dancing around the Christmas tree; it’s about stalking the wet and rainy streets, feeling triggered by overly happy Christmas decorations while you’re yearning for someone who is unavailable. It’s not the usual Christmas anthem we’re all familiar with, but it captures a feeling we’ve all felt.”(SPC) 

ELLIOTT SMITH, “KINGS CROSSING” 

“Hear me out… this might not seem like the most obvious Christmas song at first, but stick with it, there’s a whole verse about a ”skinny Santa” slurring his words that’s bound to jumpstart your festive spirit. From a songwriter known for his painfully poignant melodies, “King’s Crossing” has to be Elliott Smith’s most grandiose, elegiac song. It begins in a discordant confusion of voices and noise, from which the most hauntingly beautiful piano emerges as the song builds to a series of majestic crescendos. The lyrics are stirring and enigmatic. It’s just the right amount of tragedy, grandeur, beauty and mystery to be the perfect soundtrack for feeling those heightened Christmas emotions. Play it on your own and very loudly, so you can feel thrillingly dramatic, lovelorn and misunderstood.”(ED)​

BLEACHERS, “MERRY CHRISTMAS, PLEASE DON’T CALL” 

“Christmas is supposed to be about goodwill, generosity, and forgiveness, but it’s also a time of dark nights and heightened emotions, of thinking about the past and, probably at least once in your life, of being surrounded by people who are happier than you. It’s understandable, then, that things can get a little bitter (“Last Christmas”, arguably the season’s finest song, isn’t exactly a gracious ode to letting bygones be bygones.) Released last year, “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” is a strong new addition to the festive breakup canon. It’s both wistful and angry (the line “don’t tell them what you told me, don’t even tell them that you know me” feels truly cutting), and the production is gorgeous, making especially good use of saxophonist Evan Smith and building to a majestic crescendo of Christmassy sadness. The song is a powerful reminder not to contact your ex during the holidays, however tempting it may be when you’re three glasses of mulled wine deep – there’s nothing you want to say to them that can’t wait until January, if it ever needs to be said at all. Merry Christmas, please don’t fave my Instagram story or send my mum a card.” (JG)

AARON CARTIER, “CARTIER CHRISTMAS (FEAT. GLITCH GUM)” 

“Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas (yeah, yeah) / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas (yeah, yeah) / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas / Cartier Christmas (yeah, yeah).” 

Why you mad, lookin’ all sad, why you Grinchin’? Cartier Christmas, that’s the gift that keeps on giving. (TW)

PHOEBE BRIDGERS, FIONA APPLE, AND MATT BERNIGER, “7 O’CLOCK NEWS/ SILENT NIGHT” 

“​Not to be a grinch, but I hate Christmas. There’s a sense of artifice to it, a lot of pretending, and often, sadness for many, despite its reputation as the most “wonderful time of year.” I find a lot of solace in sad Christmas music for that very reason. “7 O’Clock News/ Silent Night” by Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, and Matt Berninger takes after the Simon & Garfunkel version from 1966, updating the news report spoken by Berninger while Bridgers and Apple sing “Silent Night”. The newscast replays information on the sentencing of police officer Amber Guyger, who murdered Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man in his home, along with news of the Trump impeachment inquiry and attacks on Roe V. Wade. It is a haunting and deeply profound listening experience – and speaks to all my personal problems with this season. As Bridgers and Apple sing beautifully, we are reminded of all the horrors that still persist in the world, and how this holiday sometimes encourages us to be ignorantly jolly in the face of them.” (HJ)

JONI MITCHELL, “RIVER” 

“A mournful piano interpolation of “Jingle Bells” sounds like it should be ridiculous, but “River” is one of the saddest songs ever written. Joni is surrounded by festive scenes (the people around her “cutting down trees, “putting up reindeer, and singing songs of joy and peace”), but in the wake of a devastating heartbreak, she wants only to escape. My only critique is that it’s too sad, too hopeless, that it conveys not gentle melancholy – the kind that’s actually quite pleasant – but lacerating pain and unbearable regret. It’s a great song, but, speaking from experience, I don’t recommend listening to it if you are actually heartbroken.” (JG)

MARIKA HACKMAN, “DRIVING UNDER STARS” 

“I generally prefer my Christmas music with a touch of misery, but this is a straightforwardly sweet and romantic song about heading home for the holidays with a loved one. Unlike some indie artists trying their hand at the genre, Hackman is willing to commit to the cheesier elements: there’s sleigh bells, references to holly and ivy, a hearty ‘sha-la-la-la’ in the chorus. I am single this year, so it doesn’t quite hit the same for me, but I’m sharing it anyway as an act of goodwill towards the people-with-boyfriends community.” (JG)

ROBERT EARL KEEN, “MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FAMILY” 

““Mom got drunk, and dad got drunk at our Christmas party” is a fantastic opening line for a Christmas song and really sets the scene for a tale about a family that is as functional and dysfunctional as all families are. We get mentions of things that traditional songwriters for some reason often forget to include in their holiday classics: chain smoking, homemade eggnog, AA, a power cut, a can of fake snow, second wives, Mexican boyfriends, and extension chords. The chorus involves sending one family member to the store to pick up an ever-changing shopping list of ice, bean dip, celery for the Bloody Marys, a box of tampons, and some Marlboro Lights. How can you not love that?“ (AP) 

ARTHUR RUSSELL, “HIDING YOUR PRESENT FROM YOU” 

“I don’t know if Arthur Russell was thinking about Christmas specifically, but “Hiding Your Present From You” is, I think, an unbelievably romantic song about the best part of the season – gift-giving – lifted from an album that combined Russell’s meditation practice, the NY avant-garde scene of the mid-80s, and lyrical feedback from Allen Ginsberg. “When you see where it is, but don’t know where it is,” the musician sings, over spacey, distorted cello sounds. “I’m putting everything around you, over by you / Now I’m hiding your present from you.” Arguably, the lyrics hit even harder if you’ve spent the last several years sharing a small flat, where the thrill of hiding presents right under someone’s nose is a very real and relatable feeling.” (TW)​

SPARKS, “THANK GOD IT’S NOT CHRISTMAS” 

“This is one of my favourite songs on what is arguably one of the all-time greatest albums, Kimono My House by Sparks. It’s not an anti-Christmas song so much as a wry glance at the mores of the festive season and a distinct failure to really participate in the general reverie. I’d go so far as to say this is a perfect song – the sound, the tune, and the vocals are irresistible, and the lyrics are arch and touched with glamour (“There I’ll spend the night/ Meeting fancy things/ At bistros and old haunts/ Trying very hard to sin”). Play on repeat.” (ED)