“Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses

"Christmas Wrapping" was a job the Waitresses didn't want. In 1981 ZE Records wanted a Christmas song from every act on its roster for its compilation A Christmas Record, and the band were deep in a rough tour; Chris Butler called the request "the last thing we wanted". He wrote it that August, stitching it from spare riffs, and finished the words in a cab on the way to Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village.

Butler produced it and Patty Donahue sang it; he has said the words grew out of his hatred of the holiday, a New York where everyone was tearing around with no joy in it. It later landed on the EP I Could Rule the World If I Could Only Get the Parts, and AllMusic calls it one of the finest holiday pop songs ever cut.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.