You may love it, you may hate it, but regardless, December is the time you will be barraged with holiday songs. There are plenty of ones you’re familiar with, but we’d also like to introduce you to some you may be unfamiliar with.

Carol of the Bells by Savatage 

This song is responsible for the formation of the band, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This heavy metal adaptation of the classic Christmas medley became the #1 requested song on the radio station, WPLJ, which led to them getting label support to form the aforementioned band. You could say this is a powerful song. Some would describe as making Christmas sound like a boss fight.

Christmas Time Is Here by Vince Guaraldi

Whether the instrumental or vocal version, this song from the classic Charlie Brown Christmas movie is one of the most relaxing and nostalgic Christmas songs for a lot of people. Vince Guaraldi supposedly made this jazz composition a month before the show aired and ended up writing the lyrics in 10 minutes in his kitchen.

Christmas In Hollis by Run-D.M.C.

With the Rev Run and D.M.C.’s energetic and playful performance and Rick Rubin’s equally energetic beat, this golden age hip hop song is one of the most fun Christmas songs. It may be somewhat cheesy, but in a charming way. This song contains samples from other classic Christmas songs, for example “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman.”

Christmas In The Room by Sufjan Stevens

This song may be a bit more somber and emotional when compared to the other entries on this list, but this is a great Christmas song, nonetheless. It is a bittersweet indie folk song with themes dealing with maturing and accepting the fact you are maturing, while still of course sounding great.

Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano

Now returning to more lighthearted songs, we have the simple and fun, yet genuine Latin pop song, Feliz Navidad. For good reason, this song has gone platinum in 5 different countries and gold in 3 other countries. It is said that José Feliciano wrote this song while feeling homesick and lonely, since it was the Christmas season, and he was in Los Angeles while his family was in New York. He managed to turn those feelings into a hit song.

Ludacrismas by Ludacris

Ludacris provides a mid/late 200-s trap style Christmas song for the movie, Fred Claus. This is available on YouTube if you want to hear what a Ludacris Christmas song sounds like. In a similar vein, there exists a DMX cover of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,