True musical naïvete can never be taught, and when it's gone, it can never be recaptured. Such is the story of Shonen Knife, whose '80s and early '90s stretch of punk-naif albums and singles still enchants me, even though I find everything that came after their 1992 major label debut Let's Knife to be somewhere between dull and lame. Shonen Knife were smarter and funnier than even a lot of their fans gave them credit for; I feel strongly that they knew they had an appealing hook as far as their American fans went, but at the same time, I don't think songs like this dead-simple wish of Christmas cheer are the least bit contrived: they did, in fact, want us to enjoy the holidays, and Naoko Yamano's usual obsessions (bison, marshmallows, space travel) appear because it wouldn't be a Shonen Knife song without them, the same way that it wouldn't be Christmas if your uncle Elwood wasn't wearing those goofy reindeer antlers.

-Stewart Mason