Sorry Seth Cohen, But We All Need To Give Up On Alternative Christmas

If you are that person that insists on She & Him’s Christmas album every year, because Zooey Deschanel singing “I Wish Santa Was a Kitten” in husky tones really contributes to feelings of seasonal mirth, then we can not be friends. I don't believe in alternative Christmas - it's a modern tradition that came into inception some time after the Butthole Surfers recorded their cover of “Good King Wenceslas” and reached its horrifying nadir when Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever soundtrack went on sale priced at £18.

You can’t make Christmas cool. It’s like people who go to weddings in wacky ties or have bean bags instead of sofas in their living room. They think it’s kooky, but some things are just supposed to be the way they’re supposed to be. And at Christmas we’re supposed to return to the same fifteen canonical tracks that we, as a nation, have made modern carols. You can stuff your John Lewis breathy covers of once-enjoyable hits, because they will never take playlist precedence over Mariah’s trilling.

One big reason for our communal rejection of anything that didn't appear on Top of the Pops is that we spend most of Christmas blind drunk - in states where familiarity and shrieking is all we can really comprehend. Even that git in the corner who threatens to shiv anyone wearing an “ugly sweater” in the office will be humming “Last Christmas” when he’s having a waz at the Christmas party.

More than that, we tend to be enamoured with songs that have a humble, homemade quality about them. The Pogues tell us a pissed up story about a warring couple who manage to recall the happiness of previous holiday seasons. Jona Lewie’s trying to impart an anti-war message, but all we hold onto are those brass band arrangements and the monotonous dub a dub a dums. All Britain’s favourite Christmas tracks are like sonic packages that have been badly wrapped by your Mum after a few sherries.

Why? Because we are a nation of self-loathing bumblers. We delight in passive aggression and quiet mediocrity. If you want current evidence of this, just look at the fact that VeryBritishProblems has 900,000 followers and Boris Johnson’s political strategy is to pretend to be a lifesize Winnie the Pooh.

It’s very difficult for any new Christmas songs to achieve even a modicum of the same permanency as these classics; the last real Xmas track we took to our hearts was back in 2003, and that was only because it had a gag about bellends in it. Leona Lewis’ “One More Sleep” managed to claw its way to no. 3 last year, but it’s noticeably absent from any 2014 Top 40 Countdown, despite being fucking amazing. We don’t want new at Christmas.

So, I’m sorry, Matt & Zoey, The Killers, Bob Dylan, and all you other alternative Xmas musicians, but you’re never going to make it happen. Britain recently voted Dawn & Tim from The Office awkwardly snogging in front of their boss at the Christmas party their favourite moment. So is it any surprise we’d rather listen to Kim Wilde and Mel Smith kitsch version "Rocking Around The Christmas Tree" than Sufjan Stevens performing O Come O Come Emmanuel on a lute.

What I’m basically saying is less of this sort of thing:

Follow Moya on Twitter: @moya_lm