It’s now the acceptable time of year when you start jamming to your Christmas playlists even though the stores have been playing them since Halloween. I’m sure everyone has a go-to Christmas jam, and this playlist is just here to enlighten you to the best pop holiday tunes of all time (according to me, obv.) I haven’t changed my Christmas lineup in roughly ever because the 90’s crushed holiday CD’s so please indulge and share in this guilty pleasure with me. For the record, this is not the place to go for Christmas classics, if you’re looking for Bing Crosby please see yourself to another blog.

1. All I Want For Christmas Is You-Mariah Carey. If your Christmas CD/mixtape/playlist doesn’t always and forever start with this song then you don’t know the real meaning of Christmas. This song IS Christmas. Every year it kicks off the holidays and I would go so far as to say it’s Mariah Carey’s claim to fame. Forget all that other nonsense, this song can only be sung by Mariah Carey and it will always put me in a fabulous holiday mood.
2. What Christmas Means to Me-Hanson. Some of you may be shocked by this addition, and will be even more shocked when you see that I doubled up on the Hanson. Well guess what? Hanson’s Christmas album was THE SHIT. Those little pre-pubescent boys with flowing, luscious locks knew how to rock some Santa jams. Listen to this and you’ll immediately start clapping by yourself while drinking some adult hot chocolate (trust me, it’ll make you looser for the clapping part).
3. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays-N*SYNC. If Hanson’s Christmas CD was great, N*SYNC’s was even better. I don’t know what happened between now and the 90’s that made every artist stop doing Christmas CD’s but clearly that’s where the money’s at. This song was made doubly famous by having the song and music video featured in the 90’s Christmas classic, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” starring the one and only JTT alongside Jessica Biel before she married Justin Timberlake or whatever (dream crusher). I wonder if they met while promoting this movie? Did I just break 15 year old celeb news? Probably. Anyway I recommend adding that movie to your holiday binge cycle, head’s up though there’s a little bit of profanity. Jessica Biel calls JTT a butthole and my mom got REAL ticked with my sister and I for watching such inappropriate content. (True story.) PS Gary Coleman in a green shiny raincoat suit in the music video? Yes please.
4. The Christmas Song-Michael Buble. This actually is a classic, but even though Bubbles is a real classy guy, he’s not in the rat pack or anything so this is a pop modern version as far as I’m concerned. For realz though, Bub’s voice is like butter. He could serenade me foreva.
5. Jingle Bell Rock-Aly&AJ. Remember these two Disney goons? One of them continued to be in the spotlight and one didn’t. Don’t ever ask me which is which. They look nothing alike but they ARE Aly&AJ and so as one they will forever be ingrained in my memory. As far as Disney beats go, this is actually not as embarrassing as some others I will include for your listening pleasure. Also these two spunksters end the song with “How’s that for a Christmas song?” THE SASS. THE TUDE. Did Mickey approve this?
6. I Won’t Be Home for Christmas-Blink 182. The obligatory badass anti-Christmas jam. In my rebellious punk-rock days when I forced my sister to take pictures of me wearing a wife beater and a tie with my tongue hanging out, yeah I was real hard, I got into listening to some HARDCORE pop punk like Blink. It was angsty of me to love a Christmas song that was so inapprops, plus how do you not giggle when he sings about someone in jail unwrapping his package? I also added this song to give me more street cred when you inevitably hate me for the 2 radio Disney songs that are coming up.
7. A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes-Various Disney Teenieboppers. Part of the fun of this cheeeeeesetastic song is trying to figure out which Disney star from our childhood is singing. Hint: one of them can see the future. I don’t even know if this is technically a Christmas song but it was on one of Radio Disney’s Holiday CD’s so boom, it is now. This is one to slow things down and make you reflect on your inner feels.
8. My Only Wish (this year)-Britney Spears. CLASSIC asking Santa for a boyfriend song. It’s okay Brit, we’ve all been there. Oh, we haven’t? Whatever guys. Santa gets shit done. Also this song is essentially the plot of every Hallmark/Lifetime holiday movie that I will be aggressively recapping and I don’t hate it.
9. Last Christmas (I Gave You My Heart)-Savage Garden. Threw you a real curveball with this one. Most of you were expecting the classic WHAM! version that started it all. I’m not knocking good ole George Michael but I’m doing my part in this world to make sure everyone knows about Savage Garden and they’re angel voices. Savage Garden’s genre was known as crying music, that probably wasn’t their specific genre but they were the type of band (of beautiful men) that could sing the happiest song and it still sounded depressing. Great sobfest soundtrack. Thank me later. Regardless, they had just the right amount of whimsical to make this remake a hit.
10. Merry Christmas Baby-Hanson. The snaps and the piano crush it in the intro to this song. I can’t be the only one who listens to it and has to remind herself that these guys were no older than 16 when they recorded this. Yikes. Petition for a comeback Christmas concert from Hanson, sans floor length hair.
11. Someday At Christmas-B5. This is mostly for laughs but also sneeeakkyyy a jam. Lots of mid-song talking, which always gives me a serious case of the giggles. Why haven’t singers figured out yet that talking amidst singing is just plain silly? Also no idea who B5 is but they are easily all 5 years old. Don’t care, still bop to it. I’m assuming it’s Diddy (because he says “your boy Diddy”) who does the end of the song recap but he gives a nice shout out to all the holidays in the world, cuz whatever you’re down with, it’s all good. Well put, Diddy, well put.
12. Baby It’s Cold Outside-Jessica Simpson ft. Nick Lachey. Why is this song on here? BECAUSE I WILL NEVER LET GO OF NICK & JESSICA. But actually, a Nick & Jessica duet is a rare gem to be cherished. RIP Newlyweds. Bonus points for the overly fake and obnoxious sleigh bells in the background track.
13. Kiss Me At Midnight-N*SYNC. What’s that you say? Christmas is over now? Don’t you even fret. N*SYNC doesn’t just pick one holiday to sing about. New Year’s counts too and makes it completely acceptable for holiday music listening to extend a couple weeks more.

Honorable mention for a song that you listen to once to fully immerse yourself in 90’s Christmas and then NEVER listen to it again: 8 Days of Christmas-Destiny’s Child. Back when Beyonce sang about getting a pair of Chloe shades and a DIAMOND BELLY RING from her baby for Christmas instead of singing about girl power and waking up like this. My, my how much our baby Bey has grown. If you want to make sure that you hate this song and never want to hear it again, have one of your most popular friends that you always hang out with set it as her ringtone. Worked like a charm for me.

I hope you enjoyed this very merry walk through Christmases of the 90’s and early 2000’s. Excuse me while I put this playlist on full blast and write my letter to Santa. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.