{Photo taken at the 2010 Imaginary Holiday Office Party by Laura Musselman}

We posted our own mix of holiday songs that kicked our imaginary holiday season off a couple weeks ago. But, since then, we’ve found ourselves up to our jingle bells with more awesome holiday songs! With the seasonality limitation of holiday music, sometimes it’s easy for our holiday mixtapes to get stale. Here are some recommendations to fill out your annual holiday playlists:

Mangle Bell Rock by the Mangles
It’s a wonderfully rocking batch of songs that blend both Seattle and Minneapolis vintages of garage rock. Favorite track: “Living White Hell”

Christmastime Approximately by various artists
I found this compilation via Eux Autres who have a super stellar track, “Teenage Christmas,” on the Christmastime Approximately compilation.  If you hurry on over to the  Where It’s At is Where You Are Records website, you might still be able to download the entire album for free (for a limited time only). Another fave track: “Just Like Xmas (In Cottonopolis)”

An Indiecater Christmas 2010 by various artists
It’s the Irish label’s third Christmas compilation (the 2008 and 2009 versions are also quite grand) and there are a couple favorite tracks to recommend: Paisley and Charlie – “Snow Blitz” and Boca Chica – “Not On Christmas Eve.” The album is available for sale but you can stream to the whole album on the Indiecater website to for a sample.  If you want to hear more Boca Chica, the Pittsburgh group has a mini- holiday EP that you can download on the Boca Chica bandcamp page.

The Matinee Holiday Soiree by various artists
We mentioned this compilation on our holiday songs podcast, but I wanted to point out again its festive brilliance. To sample it, you can visit the Matinee Recordings FaceBook page to stream the entire EP and download a free MP3 of “Santa Needs A Holiday” by Strawberry Whiplash.

Christmas Special by the boy least likely to
A full album of original holiday songs if a huge undertaking, but for the soft spoken, bedroom pop outfit the boy least likely to it makes perfect sense. You can buy the album just about anywhere and and sample a couple songs on the band’s website.

Various free tracks around the web worth checking out:

“California Christmas” by Sleepy Rebels (watch the video of their Santa-themed video “Sweet Things”)

“Christmas Don’t Be Late” by Hurricane Bells

“Dear Santa” by Persil

What new and old favorite holiday songs are on your festive mixtape?