Has the holiday season got you down? Just heard those same old holiday tunes so many times they haunt your every moment, and you can't wait until you can switch the station, even on your XM radio?

I may have found the solution that will put the You back in YULETIDE, or at least put some Jam in your stockings. I was wandering among the many living dead shoppers, and I mean billions - where do they all come from,(okay, just holiday shoppers), and I found several holiday music cds that definitely put a new spin on the old, worn, and overplayed holiday tunes. After popping them into the player, I was instantly gratified to hear songs that rocked, were of the holiday persuasion, and even made me laugh.

The cds that I discovered were: A Santa Cause (It's a Punk Rock Christmas), Taste of Christmas, Christmas Remixed, and Merry Mixmas.

The first ones to start with are excellent, Santa Cause and Taste of Christmas. These have such joys as songs that are new for the holidays (Forget December, A cradle in Bethlehem, Miracle of Christmas, and others), and some old classics done in a new innovative way (Jungle Bells, We 3 Kings, Last Christmas, Christmas in Hollis, The most Wonderful Time of the Year, I'll be Home for Christmas, I saw Daddy kissing Santa Claus, and a few others). While the new songs were refreshing and of the punk, metal, and hip hop persuasion, the old classics redone were in the flavor of ska, punk, metal, and hip hop as well. Definitely tunes that made me smile. The X12 days of XXXMASX is a must hear tune, combining death metal-esc sounds with new school lyrics (8 kids a-moshing). Blink 182's "I won't be home for Christmas" had me laughing so hard I was swerving down the road for this one with lines like (Christmas came one night early cause a guy named Bubba unwrapped my package). They have always had that type of an edge to their music, what with all the naked running around in their videos.

So many bands on the albums, most of them are definitely new school; Funeral for a Friend, Amped, Opiate for the Masses, Bleed the Dream, MXPX, Fall Out Boy, Black Halo's, The Used, From First to Last, In Memory, Something Corporate, New Found Glory, Saosin, The Smashup, Bedlight for Blue Eyes, and a lot of other bands. These albums had St. Nick moshing in my living room this year (some of the presents didn't make it, so if you got a beat up Xbox, sorry, it could be my fault)!

Then we get to the mix discs. I have to say there is something about an artist who can take several songs and make them into a coherent masterpiece that makes me grin. Especially when the song was played so much you can sing it in your sleep. Listening to these songs was like a breath of fresh air. New life for a song that I thought I couldn't take hearing another time the old way. Tunes like Bing Crosby's "Winter Wonderland", Lou Rawl's "Have yourself a Merry little Christmas", and Andy William's "It's the most Wonderful Time of the Year", have a new 'spin' on these albums. I couldn't wait to get out in my car, crank up the volume to building shaking levels (with subs too), and annoy the neighbors with Christmas songs they thought they knew and loved. Shaking peoples houses with Remixed Xmas songs = FUN for the whole Family...

The albums I am speaking of here are: "Christmas Remixed", and "Merry Mixmas". Nothing like hearing an old song with new life breathed into it. It's a Techno Christmas, these songs will have the dude in red breakdancing by your fireplace before midnight. My favorite song on Christmas Remixed is definitely Bing Crosby's "Happy Holidays" the Beef Wellington Remix. It was three minutes and fifteen seconds of pure audio joy.

So, if hearing those same old tunes on the radio are giving you the "I can't take another minute of these played out songs, or I will go out and break all the xmas cds blues", perhaps a dose of new school flavor will calm your nerves and bring to meaning to "Merry Christmas".

Stay cool,