If you search for video game Christmas music, you mostly get remixes, mash-ups, and music from snow-themed levels. And a lot of this music is actually pretty great! There is a lot of good holiday music from the game themselves and the community, such as Rush Coil’s 8-Bit Christmas. Of course, there’s also the rare Christmas video game soundtrack such as with Christmas Nights.
But what about Christmas music that’s neither made by fans nor from the game itself? Sure, some, like the Pokemon Christmas Bash, did a good job. But what about video game music that’s based entirely around a popular IP that the culture had no idea what to do with yet? It happened with Star Wars, so it can certainly happen with games. And, as you can tell both from the headline and from the direction of this paragraph, there is such a video game album. The official Pac-Man Christmas Album. A horrifying, deeply troubling tribute to the best time of the year.
Pac-Man’s Family Gets In On The Act, Whoever They Are
Now, listening to this album requires some minor level of Pac-Man pop culture knowledge: namely that, back in the day, we weirdly saw Pac-Man’s family a lot. I say ‘we’ because this was made years before I was born, so I wasn’t really as capable of participating as I am now. But back when there was a Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon and cereals and whatnot, Pac-Man had a family and that was something people all knew. We’re not even sure what happened to Ms. Pac-Man and whether they were actually a couple or brother and sister like in the classic Folgers commercial where the two clearly want to perform abominations in the eyes of God.
So, when the album opens with a baby saying “Merry Christmas”, that’s supposed to be Pac-Baby or Pac-Man Jr. or whatever he’s called. It’s been almost 45 years since the album came out, so that baby is probably someone who grew old and died already. Then there’s an authoritative voice that just explains the concept of Christmas and that Pac-Man’s hometown likes it. He almost breaks into song once or twice, but then pivots to explaining why Christmas smells good again.
And we’re off into some of the worst Christmas music ever made. God, I love it. I won’t break down the 25-minute album song-by-song, and that’s mostly because I’d have to listen to each of them more than twice and then this column will turn into something far darker. I can only hear the lyric “red and green stockings/Christmas tree flockings” repeated so many times before my Wikipedia page gets a new section about a series of murders.
The Album Doesn’t Understand Pac-Man – That’s What Makes It Great
What makes this album so funny – besides the first song being 90 percent the phrase “the magic of Christmas is me and you” – is that it feels like it has no idea how to use the central conceit of, you know, Pac-Man. In 2024, a horror Metroidvania with Pac-Man makes complete sense. In 1981 or 1982 – who cares? – they could not really stretch their imaginations that far. Or at all. Which is wild, because Pac-Man is a great Christmas character. He’s entirely focused on feasting and dealing with four visiting ghosts (Scrooge met four ghosts if you include Jacob Marley, you schmucks). But here? No. Not even a nod to those obvious references. Not because they’re above it, because there’s just so little effort put in here.
I’m serious about how disconnected this album is with its subject matter. The first song Pac-Man himself sings – which he oddly stops singing halfway through and hands over to a choir – has nothing to do with the world of Pac-Man. This song just follows a very standard Christmas carol procedure: listing things that are nice at Christmas. Just a long list of what’s pleasant with no real emotions behind it. This is clearly a bunch of session musicians doing their best to get a paycheck without pulling a muscle.
Oh, I forgot to tell you something very important: both Pac-Man and his family have truly, hilariously bad voices. These are obviously cartoon voices that might work better with some visuals. Fine. But here, Ms. Pac-Man sounds like Adam Sandler doing a bit making fun of doggerel holiday music. So, these songs aren’t just badly written and have very little to do with the video game they’re based on, but the least tolerable singers are the main characters themselves. Pac-Baby – again, I’m going off the album’s nomenclature – sounds like he has at least two different voices at different points.
To be fair, there are a few references to the games. Ms. Pac-Man is convinced the ghosts will be nice to Pac-Man if they’re invited to dinner. I swear to God, they talk about the ghosts and another character unironically mentions the “Spirit of Christmas” and it kills me in my heart that they couldn’t even make that pun connection. It’s a low hanging fruit, but rather than grabbing it off the tree, they just walk straight past it. But don’t worry: This thread is briefly dropped in favor of a country song about getting a Christmas kiss from your grandma.
The ghosts don’t like Christmas because there’s nobody in the streets to chase. They get a singing telegram from Pac-Man – itself not a song – and the ghosts believe they can kill Pac-Man by accepting his invitation and visiting his house. Or, at least, learn about Christmas. I swear, we have maybe two or three story segments that are interrupted by songs that have nothing to do with what’s happening. The Christmas celebration interstitials here are more akin to the sketches they used to have on rap albums. Nothing makes sense. It’s like 95 percent first draft Christmas carol castoffs and 5 percent Pac-Man considering who to invite over for dinner.
Instead of killing Pac-Man, the ghosts decide they want to eat the good food spread. And then Pac-Man gives the ghosts gifts like sneakers that I’m not sure they can wear. But can they eat regular food? What even is a ghost? I don’t think I understand how death works. It’s far less permanent than I was told. Oh, and this 15-second bit is followed by a slow song in which a guy gently sings “let’s be friends again” on a loop. And, I guess, the story of Pac-Man ends there because the ghosts and the Pacs are cool now.
Look, I get that this is a cash grab album for children released before most of us even existed as children. But, man, of the handful of video game Christmas albums ever released, this must be the absolute worst in the absolute best way. It’s fascinating. The ghosts catch the “Christmas Spirit” – it’s used a second time at the end with no hint of irony – and then sing We Wish You A Merry Christmas with the energy of singing Happy Birthday to a terminal patient. It’s like a prank. It’s fantastic. It’s perfect. Not to mention a sign of just how far the culture of games has come since then. At least people working with the material seem to actually like the games these days. But, still. The Pac-Man Christmas Album exists and I listen to it every year. I do not know why.
