COVER TIME: Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses)

How 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses came about, in short: president Michael Zilkha of post-punk label ZE Records came up with the idea to have his stable record original Christmas songs early in 1981. For a compilation.
In this video, Waitresses-guitarist Chris Butler says the band needed that idea 'like a hole in the head' because they were on tour for months, they were tired. So he stitched together some bits & pieces of half-finished songs, and that became 'Christmas Wrapping'. They delivered the song, and then the band forgot about it. Until they found out (odd story this, but this is what Chris says) that the song was all over the radio in November. So the band had to relearn it.

Recently the track was kinda revived, because of Olivia Rodrigo's new seasonal single. That was deliberatly referencing the Waitresess track. Read how Olivia had Chris Butler check it before release here. Then, Robbie Williams entered the chat, because somebody apparently pointed out that Olivia's track sounded a little like Williams' track 'Candy'. Here's what Robbie wrote about that. TL;DR: Williams couldn't care less about any similarity, and wishes Olivia all the best.

So, all 'n all it's a very good time to check out a selection of cover versions of the 1981 Waitresses song. With that West African guitar lick and that wonderful saxophone hook, that most versions keep in tact.

Guess this is the most prominent coverversion, along with the Kylie & Iggy duet:

Duo The Skivvies play 'stripped down' versions of songs, and they take that very literally, so they strip down to their lingerie themselves too. Two examples:

Belle & Sebastian covered it:

Summer Camp did this more hazy version, without the brass:

theaudioperv · Summer Camp - Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses cover)

With Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem, Mike D from Beastie Boys and members of Antibalas, wow:
Superfast ska-version:
Very slow, grungey version:
Slowed down cheap electronica version (I mean that in a good way): Sad13 (hey!) also took it s-l-o-w:
Again, slow (it's a theme within a theme):
How about we take it slow, AND strip it down?
Rockversion, love how they translated the saxophone part:
Celtic popband Screaming Orphans added a little skip to it:

Ouverture to Christmas Wrapping:
Like that brass? Here's more brass:
And finally: THE DONNAS

Of course there are more versions, with looked at a few in 2023, see here.