Need some butt-rock to motivate your ass out the door to finish shopping? Luckily it's not just Satan, Satan, Satan all the time with these guys.

TWISTED SISTER - Heavy Metal Christmas (Twelve Days of Christmas)
That's quite a swag bag Dee Snider's accumulated by day twelve... twenty-two pairs of spandex pants, thirty studded belts, thirty-six quarts of Jack... but one wonders where he can possibly fit twelve Ozzy tattoos on his body.

ENUFF Z'NUFF - Happy Holiday
Had they come around just a few years later, Enuff Z'Nuff's marriage of sugary hooks and Midwestern rock might have landed them a spot alongside more respected power-pop revivalists like Matthew Sweet. In the absence of a Cheap Trick Christmas single - which could still happen, Cheap Trick's not dead yet! - at least we have this.

THE GREEDIES - A Merry Jingle
At the close of 1979, Phil Lynott and Steve Jones brokered an uneasy peace between punk and metal at the historic Donnington Summit, leading the way for the formation of Corrosion of Conformity and Venom in the coming years. This is the document of the miracle accomplished on that day.

SLADE - Merry Christmas Everybody
Proto-metal, to be exact, if you've got your eye on the calendar when it comes to choosing genre names. But seriously. Slade wrote "Cum On Feel The Noize", including the mis-spellings in the title, and it doesn't get more metal than THAT. None more metal.

SPINAL TAP - Christmas With The Devil
While on the topic of "none more", consider: the mighty Tap. With roots stretching back to the mop-toppy English 60s, they're advanced enough to be considered proto-everything including devil worship. "No bells in hell - no snow below," they intone with the voice of them who have been there, drunk the bloody nog, screwed some demons under the burning mistletoe, and returned to scream the tale.

Photo by larsv on flickr.