For our column Jams We Love, we're turning you onto the songs that keep us going every day. Today, we're cranking up the Christmas spirit big time.

1. Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime"

The best thing about this 1979 song is the bouncy, weird synths that punctuate this newer holiday standard. Even though there are almost 25 known cover versions of this song, we stand by the original as the best.

2. Chuck Berry, "Run Rudolph Run"

It's a song of empowerment, a song that espouses the power of rock n' roll as the saviour of all that is good and pure in the world.

3. Mariah Carey, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"

This is the second-best Christmas song by Carey (we all know the first) that she unearthed from Phil Spector's early 60s holiday album for her inimitable Merry Christmas from 1994. It's on the sadder side, sure, but we can't get over the epic, church-like gospel feel of the song and the new life she breathes into Darlene Love's forlorn classic.

4. Otis Redding, "Merry Christmas Baby"

This R&B Christmas tune originated until 1947, but no version matches the feeling you get when you listen to Otis Redding's warm, brown sugar voice, which was recorded in 1967.

5. Phil Spector'sA Christmas Gift For You Album

Released on the exact day JFK was assassinated, this batch of Wall Of Sound holiday gems was initially overlooked, but its timelessness factor is kept alive thanks to the artists featured: Darlene Love, The Crystals, The Ronettes, and Spector himself all crooned their way into record collections of the time, and remain the perfect antidote to the stale versions that came before them.