In the spirit of the magic of the season (and in hopes of providing some warm respite from the usual end-of-the-year best-of deluge of stories and their attendant doldrums), IndieWire is proud to present our first-ever Holiday Week.

Look, friends. There are now endlessly scrollable, curated Christmas playlists on any music streaming service you care to name, as well as 24-hour YouTube compilation videos of, like Christmas lo-fi jazz plus an endless Yule Log. There are albums specifically for all the “Doctor Who” Christmas specials. You should be well and truly covered for all your wintertime music playlist needs.

But perhaps you, discerning IndieWire reader, want to spice up said holiday mix with some tracks that have been featured in beloved Christmas movies and television shows. Perhaps you want your playlist to have some of the same sauce as the needle drops in “Home Alone 2” and “Die Hard” (yes, I am talking about Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as a needle drop and shaming every music teacher I’ve ever had; it’s fine). Perhaps your family is arguing about which music to have on, and you’re panicking.

Well, we’re here to help. With the stipulation that the songs listed below had to be, first, memorably featured in a film or TV episode and, second, must also be able to live comfortably in the same rotation as your Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums or on shuffle right after “’tis the damn season,” we have come up with a selection of songs to build a great holiday soundtrack, from the great holiday films and TV episodes that are out there.

Picks are listed alphabetically by film or television show title.

“Fairytale of New York” — “Black Doves”

Image Credit: Ludovic Robert/Netflix

We’re starting dark, I know. But “Fairytale of New York” is the best dark Christmas song ever written and it belongs on every Christmas playlist. Sung by The Pogues with unforgettable vocals by Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan, it captures hope, how life grinds us all down, and how around Christmas we can manage to hope a bit again, even from the drunk tank. The song is used in the opening and in Episode 6 of Netflix’s spy/mom crashout thriller “Black Doves” as the perfect, twisted tone-setter, sad and romantic, and a harbinger of (not necessarily better) things on the horizon.

“Black Mirror” — “It Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”

Image Credit: ©Channel Four/Courtesy Everett Collectio / Everett Collection

It really is a credit to the “White Christmas” episode of “Black Mirror” that it matches the manic weirdo energy of Wizzard’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.” But while the sentence of living a thousand years a minute over Christmas is one of the most existentially horrifying things “Black Mirror” has ever done, the song itself is perfectly fun, with jazzy saxes to send a bit of warmth into the winter and the kind of beat that, somehow but very scientifically, I’m sure, helps you cook a Christmas dinner. Just be sure that whatever radio or speaker you’re playing it out of is, in fact, breakable.

“Catch Me If You Can” — “Mele Kalikimaka”

Image Credit: ©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection

Yes, yes, “National Lampoon” did it first, I am aware. But “Catch Me If You Can” is a stealthily great Christmas movie — for those who are forced to work over the holiday for various logistical and emotional survival reasons, and for those whose families are, shall we say, a bit much — and the version of the ’50s-tastic song about Hawaiian Christmas included in the Steven Spielberg film is just fantastic. It’s jazzy and tonally pushes on the trials and travails of Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), and is a great track to lighten or add a little variety to the standard roll of carols in a Christmas playlist.

“Christmas Time Is Here” — “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

Image Credit: ©United Features Syndicate/Courtesy Everett Collection

The original. The icon. The legend. The Snoopy. The whole Vince Guaraldi Trio Peanuts Christmas album is worth your time in December — the instrumental versions hit with some hot cider or cocoa — but “Christmas Time Is Here” is the most famous song from that album and the Peanuts Christmas special for a reason. The slow, sophisticated, deep instrumentals paired with the kids’ choir singing the lyrics just express something about the vibe of celebrating Christmas in a way nothing else does.

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” — “Elf”

Image Credit: ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

There are some great Christmas playlist candidates throughout “Elf” — the Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” will get any millennial, regardless of how they feel about the song — but we’ve got to put respect on the film’s ability to take one of the corniest, carol-y-est Christmas carols and integrate it into the action climax of the film. Play “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and take your own personal Christmas spirit meter to 100!

“Christmas Is All Around” — “Love Actually”

Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

Again, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” — or, if you are of a particular age that Emma Thompson trying desperately not to cry was your introduction to Joni Mitchell, and “Both Sides Now” is inextricably linked to Christmas for you — is a really strong choice out of “Love Actually.” But we must put respect on Billy Mack’s (Bill Nighy) name here at IndieWire. “Christmas Is All Around” is an absurd, barely servicable pop track with a sleigh bell kit on a loop, but damn it, Nighy belts the hell out of it, and it’s fun, and it works. One of the true modern Christmas song classics of the 21st century, actually.

“It Feels Like Christmas” — “The Muppet Christmas Carol”

Image Credit: ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

I’ll be honest with you, reader. I reached out to a number of friends and asked, “What would be your pick of the best song from ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol,’” just to get some anecdotal data to back up my own soft spot for “Marley and Marley.” I got such impassioned walls of text for “Bless Us All” and “When Love Is Gone” that I think I need to go rewatch the movie again. But the most Christmas-y of the songs has to be “It Feels Like Christmas.” It is the biggest, jauntiest, merriest song in the film and also the one that fits seamlessly onto any otherwise non-muppet Christmas playlist.

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” — “Ted Lasso”

Image Credit: ©Apple TV/Courtesy Everett Collection

Alas, I have been unable to find a full Hannah Waddingham and Jason Sudeikis cover of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” from Season 2 of “Ted Lasso,” but there are roughly a bazillion other versions of that song; and from Mariah Carey to Death Cab For Cutie, they’re all great. Used on the Apple TV series, it’s a wonderful, boozy button to Season 2’s Christmas episode, “Carol of the Bells,” but there’s a cute yearning that kind of matches “Ted Lasso’s” earnest energy, and will put a spring in your step whether or not you’re waiting for folks to arrive for Christmas.

“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” — “Meet Me In St. Louis”

Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

Judy Garland gives simply the best performance of any Christmas song ever put to film, and, as a result, this song is the GOAT of all Christmas songs. That’s it. That’s the blurb.