“Hello everybody. This is Ivan Raczycki here, founder, president, CEO, commissioner, publicist, high chancellor, supreme dictator, all around cool guy of Eternal Bummer Records. I’m here to formally invite you and welcome you to Eternal Holidaze: An Eternal Bummer Christmas Volume 1. I’ve had a lot of fun getting my friends together to record seasonal classics both original and new, both traditional and bizarre. Welcome to Eternal Holidaze. It was a merry joy and I hope y’all have a Merry Christmas. Stay bummed.”

After Mikey Chuck Rivers played The Cameron House in Toronto on November 21st, he decided to take a rollicking cadre of carollers back to his place, amongst them banjo-best-bud Darren Eedens and super-mandolinist Joe Elliott (of Blaze N Murder, A Cat Named Wolf, the Mafat Conspiracy), soak them with Upper Canada Lagers and Bailey’s-spiked mugs of joe, and make them “croon” over this John Denver classic ode to bad holiday parenting. Featuring the Upper Canada Singers: James Da Mota, Katherine DeVrieze, Sarah Rafter, Oscar Delarivierra, Darren Eedens, Joe Elliott

The boys in Amity Beach burrowed underground into their home basement studio to crank out their excellent Christmas original, “Snowbank Sessions.” Lyrically, we find the forever astute Geoff Baillie waxing poetic about the sometimes shallow vacuity of holiday traditions. But, in tandem with the band bouncing along in the background, our beach boys shake off their inner Scrooge, promising to “make traditions of our own.” A snowbank ain’t a sandy tide, but Amity Beach make more than do.

This year, Win Chelsea lost half of its membership after the departure of Evan Clapp. The other half, Mister Charlie Weber, wrote this song as “a statement to the world and myself that Win Chelsea is not dead and that I will carry on in this endeavour.” His song “A Christmas Story” is a slice of Christmas kitsch, recalling the tales of three loveable holiday losers like Hermey from Rudolph, Ralphie from A Christmas Story, and Rerun from I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown overtop Weber and an unnamed alias’s own story. Charlie says, “As family, friends and as lovers we all sit down to watch our favourite movies around this holiday season, creating memories and traditions. Also, my brain is so fried from exposure to television over the past 20 years that all of my creative thought has gone out the window so I had to steal other peoples ideas in lieu of an original thought.”

Gerard Creces, formerly of Bastid Sonz and currently of the Fiends, wrote this deranged ditty about a party animal (or junkie, depending on how you look at it) who causes an annual uproar each Christmas season, “like the time I punched my grandma when I’ze barely seventeen or the time I shot my brother ’cause he laid a pair of queens.” There’s a wonderfully demented “fa la la” refrain, the single-most festive bass solo you’ve ever heard, and more than a few cups of Christmas cheer (and pills of Christmas cheer, and syringes of Christmas Cheer, and…).

EB’s resident dance-pop mavens took a tender break with their rendition of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s classic “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” Assisted by David Creces’ wife Rae Lovie on vocals, DNSQ3 carried their synthetic elements overtop beautifully-picked acoustic guitar that covers your body much like a warm fireplace does after a hearty bout of tobogganing. Fitting, then, that DNSQ3 recorded this rendition in their PJs. From DNSQ3: A very merry xmas and a happy new year – let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear. Love, DNSQ3

Tower 608 is a trio of Queens University music education students who got together to record this yuletide classic in Suite 608 of their apartment complex Princess Towers (get it?). Featuring Zurich resident Jillien Regier along with her pals Adam Grydzan (The Ize) and Jacob Bryce, their “O Holy Night” is a gorgeous take on the tune, easing their voices into delicious bouts of three-part harmony, backed by gently-strummed acoustic guitar and surging synths. This is the stuff Christmas memories are made of.

“Here We Come A-wassailing” this ain’t: the noise/art-rap duo of N. Alexander Armstrong and Devon Marinac have concocted possibly the most eerie Christmas carol ever put to tape, like David Lynch slowly strangling the Bing Crosby’s holiday canon. Admittedly, N. Alexander said Marinac’s stream-of-consciousness subject matter is “less about Christmas and more about hating intellectuals,” but put this on with a mug of hot cocoa after a 2AM viewing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and everything starts to make a little more sense. Easter egg: the end of the track features EB’s Ivan Raczycki passing out while playing guitar.

Skrillex, Super Mario, and Santa soaring through the galaxy with a fleet of robot reindeer: that’s how I’ll describe RaZr SpaYd && the Wyqqid Glitch of da WeST’s take on the classic “O Christmas Tree.” The team of Guitärmönies’ Matthew Karas and his pal Kirk Mason put together over fifty tracks, including autotuned cowbell and banjo plucks, to create this massive monster of a Christmas carol. It consistently blows my mind every single time I hear it, which is a rarity for any seasonal song offering. Incredible.

Anonymous mash-up supervillain Great Minds assembled this beast of a Christmas feast. Melding together the scores of Home Alone and A Muppet’s Christmas Carol (by John Williams and Paul Williams, respectively) and dropping verses from Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah and the recently-convicted G-Dep makes for a weird Christmas pill to swallow. But, if you played this over the loudspeakers at Masonville Mall in prime holiday shopping season, you’d suddenly get the picture. Even Kermit the Frog can’t hide from Great Minds’ apocalypse-pop.

Take some cherries, put 'em in your milk IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Get your coupons, buy a bunch o' nuts IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Shave your beard and put it in the tree IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Tell your mom you hate the cat IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Roast some pinecones drop 'em on your face IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Punch a cop and put 'im in a snowman CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Deck the halls with your roommate's hair IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Flush your phone in the festive toilet'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Consult a doctor 'bout your warts IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Read a book 'bout swans and forks IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Baby Jesus shotguns beers IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! Snowball Santa Boyz II Men IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!! CHOCOLATE RUDOLPH GOES TO SLEEP BLIZZARD MILKSHAKE NEAR YOUR FEET THE FIREPLACE IS FULL OF BEES I LOVE THE WAY YOU BEND YOUR KNEES LITTLE DRUMMER HATE YOURSELF ROBOT SANTA ON YOUR SHELF SEASON'S SNOOP DOGGS WEARING PLAID BEST SOY LATTE THAT YOU EVER HAD TINSEL TRINKETS STOMP THE YARD RUSSIAN FLINSTONE CANDY BAR WINTER SOLSTICE PREGNANT PLACE I LOST MY MIND IN SANTA SPACE CHRISTMAS IS A TIME OF YEAR YUP IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!11!!

Our pal Phil “PHIL! PHIL! PHIL!” Castiglione of Robots! Everywhere!! knows how to have a good time. His carol “Christmas Hangover” shows that even the most wonderful time of the year has its setbacks if you get a little too rowdy. Phil paints a picture of youthful ebullience: staying up all Christmas Eve with your brother doing push-ups till you puke and drinking with “Uncle Ivan,” until Christmas day comes ’round and your head throbs so sore you want to hang your brother from the curtains. So if you double up on yer egg-nog, make sure to follow that up with some aspirin, or you’ll get caught “hungover on, hungover on, hungover on Christmas.”

“What a sad Christmas song,” Stuck Out Here’s Cam Laurie remarks at the end of their take on Paul Baribeau’s “Christmas Lights.” He’s certainly right: lyrically, the song takes depressing nosedive after depressing nosedive into the bluest of Blue Christmas territory. However, their rendition, featuring plaintive piano plucks from drummer Patrick Armstrong, fits perfectly with band themes of homecoming and home-leaving, and what better time to contemplate all this life-moving-and-shaking than when you’re snuggled up at home for Christmas, whether it’s in your childhood bed or the pull-out couch ’cause dad turned your room into his man cave.

Straight from Ivan Raczycki’s fingers: “For five years, I released five annual Christmas albums under my solo nom de plume Hanora for a series called Hanora for the Holidays. Last year, life took its turns and time tore the tradition away for a season. Christmas has always been about family for me, and over the course of those five albums, I had the great opportunity to invite all different types of family to guest on these holiday cuts, including many artists involved with this project. It seemed fitting now to expand the project to the extended Eternal Bummer family, and I couldn’t be more proud of it. This track is from number 3 in the series, Hanora, Once Again, for the Holidays. The first verse, depicting the festive scene on display in the heart of downtown Clinton, was written by my dad Jan Raczycki. Merry Christmas everybody.” There's a strand of lights in the shape of a tree At the junction of 4 & 8 And when they're up and all lit It's time to celebrate I want three wreaths hanging For each door on my house And five sets of lights around my tree I'm up at six in the morning And by seven, I'm asleep Comfortably held between my three wreaths The circuit swirls snowflakes down from the sky Until they rest upon our cheeks And from the stores where we dump our change The snowfall just won't cease I want three wreaths hanging for each door on my house And five sets of lights around my tree I'm up at six in the morning And by seven, I'm asleep Comfortably held between my three wreaths A small winter smell sweeps in from my window I can see my tired body laying next to the fire's glow Blankets all curled, I unfurl with the stockings It's quiet and calm, only the snowflakes are talking Candy cane pillars adorning my porch With footprints cluttering the scene Every snow scuff a mark from the people I love Carolling and visiting me And my three wreaths hanging For each door on my house And five sets of lights around my tree I'm up at six in the morning And by seven, I'm asleep Comfortably held between my three wreaths I've got cold feet From clutching close the blankets for too long My sister's up, so we run down to the tree We're up at six in the morning 'Cause we just can't stay asleep Comfortably held between my three wreaths