Exhibiting the same kind of yuletide herd mentality that damned a million Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle Me Elmos, and Atari 5600s to a lifetime of basement closet servitude (or in the latter’s case, ten-to-15 years spent in water-logged boxes outside of the local (pre-eBay) Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul before earning its “cool” back through the dark forces of nostalgia and irony), parents all over the world (and seemingly all at once) committed the ultimate holiday sin by replacing their tried and true seasonal favorites with Mannheim Steamroller’s impossibly lame Christmas 1984 album.

 
Now, there are versions of Christmas standards that do not offend, or rather, like a “commercial free” Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Pink Floyd or Rolling Stones block on your local classic rock station, they shoot through your ears like an Olympic skier, garnering a moment of glory, then disappear from your life the moment they cross the finish line. At their best, they remind you of crawling through the front door after a long day of sledding, doctoring the welts left behind from your green elastic snow pants with hot chocolate and the toys section from the eight-pound Sears catalog. After an exhausting five to ten minutes of research, here are five of them:

• Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
• Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time Is Here
• Bing Crosby - White Christmas
• Gene Autry - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Gene Autry - Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)