Truth be told, Christmas ain’t much of a hip holiday, what with all the religion and family and money and general mainstream weirdness associated with it, but that hasn’t stopped more than a few artists outside the "regular" culture from taking capitalism’s favorite holiday and doing something interesting with it. You’ve got yer Sufjan Stevens Christmas songs, your Gremlins, your Nightmare Before Christmas and (in the particular vein of that last entry in the field of holiday oddities), you’ve now got Tele Novella’s spooky/jolly Snowflake 10, a 45 with two tracks of Christmas music from a top quality Austin pop group.
In particular, Side A on this festive bit of music-ery is an X-mas themed original by Tele Novella called "Christmas Spirit" that you’ll know is something a bit different from the regular holiday fare when it starts out with Natalie Ribbons (with certainty one of Austin’s best crooners) singing "All the meanest criminals, bank robbers, crooks and killers/Buried in the cemetery are celebrating Christmas." It’s cute, creepy and’s got that Tim Burton cool done through Tele Novella’s spaghetti-Western ready trademark sound. If you’re looking for something not lame and overdone to getcha feelin’ all Christmassed up, take this short lil fun thing with ya on your holiday venturin’, and also check out B-Side Marvin Gaye cover "Purple Snowflakes" and the other Snowflakes Christmas 45s on SoundCloud. Gotdamned Chrizzmas, kids. Up in yer wallet, and now all up in yer ears, but this time in a good way.