Christmas In The Bay, Part 1 – A sampling of Christmas music from Bay Area bands

Love it or hate it, you’re going to be listening to Christmas music this time of year. Since there’s no avoiding it, why not embrace it by cranking up some holiday tunes from your favorite Bay Area bands? There’s so much local Christmas music out there, you can easily fill your ugly sweater party with nothing but music from the Bay. Here are some of our favorite Christmas songs from a handful of our favorite local bands.

(And if you’re in a Bay Area band that has laid down some holiday cheer, send it our way via the submissions page – we’d love to listen and possibly include it in Part 2 next week!)

To kick things off, check out Ash Reiter‘s “Christmas in California”, which is about as sweet as a Christmas song can get:

Tin Cup Serenade just released this Christmas song specifically for the City by the Bay:

The Shants are letting you download their version of Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas” for free:

While you’re in a folksy mood, we’ll move on to The Blank Tapes‘ twangy take on The Beatles’ Christmas Time (Is Here Again), which you can also download for free:

San Francisco electronic band Karmacoda is offering a haunting version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside”:

Grillade, which has The Park for its rhythm section, brings us their take on Soul Duo’s “Just a Sad Christmas”.

Finally, check out the wonderful retro stop-motion video for “Christmas at Home” from San Francisco indie-poppers Eux Autres. Last I checked, there were three copies of their 3-song Christmas single available on vinyl from their Bandcamp page. (Also be sure to check out a very new single while you’re there.)

Listen to more Bay Area holiday cheer next week in the second installment of Christmas In The Bay!

Related Posts:

• Bay Area Christmas music round-up 2010
• Il Gato, Ash Reiter, The Shants @ Hemlock Thursday
• Ticket Giveaway: Guy Fox and The Seshen release singles, co-headline at Rickshaw Stop this Friday, 2/22/13