Well friends, it is that time of year again. Christmas time! (With a shout out to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and your winter solstice holiday of choice.) Masked holiday parties. Smash-and-grab robberies at the mall. Getting those meetings that must be held in before everyone disappears this week. You may have missed some of the signs of the season while you were head-down working and listening to Christmas songs on Spotify:

• Stunted Christmas trees in the lot
• Hundreds of post-Thanksgiving online shopping offers
• Dire warnings of supply chain-induced delivery delays
• Inflation-adjusted eggnog prices
• Ugly sweaters

Fortunately, I am here for you. I offer you my list of popular Christmas/holiday songs, adapted for our technology world and our “unprecedented times” (drink!)

12 Twisted Christmas Songs

1. I’ll Be Home for the Indefinite Future
2. Rudolph the Red-Faced Phishing Victim
3. All I Want for Christmas is a Simplified Grant Application
4. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like We’re Not Going Back to the Office
5. Silent Night, Thank God My Phone Died and the CEO Can’t Reach Me
6. Run Rudolph Run (The Patch Update Song)
7. O Holy Crap, We Left the RDP Port Open
8. Do They Know It’s Christmas (and We’re Not Looking at Security Alerts?)
9. We Three Kings of Ransomware Are
10. Last Christmas (I Gave You My Account Credentials/The Very Next Day, You Sold Them for Bitcoin)
11. Santa Baby (The Technology Budget Song)
12. I Believe in Multi-Factor Authentication

If you are reading this before the 25th, I wish you peace, health, happiness, and no shortage of mirth now and into 2022. Maybe you are reading this while you are officially “on holiday”. If so, get some rest, relaxation and recharge! And if you are plowing though this in 2022 with your renewed resolution to work smarter, not harder… sorry to blow your goal so soon!

In any case, thanks for joining me on this long, strange trip.