Merry Christmas Everyone!

December is a busy month for most Korean celebrities. Not only is releasing a Christmas music video very popular, but many artists will also hold year-end concerts. This means fans all around the world get extra special presents all month long! The Internet is buzzing with all the different K-pop Christmas greetings and surprises.

To celebrate, I’ve collected together 10 of my favorite K-pop Christmas MVs from this year.

The funny thing about Christmas in Kpop-land is that many of these videos don’t particularly scream “Christmas”. (Crayon Pop’s Lonely Christmas being an exception). In Asia, Christmas is usually synonymous with winter, happiness, eating cake, and dating. Christmas has largely become a holiday for couples. If you are single, chances are you are going to have a pretty depressing Christmas. As opposed to the Western world, New Years is meant for family while Christmas is a time for friends and couples. You can see the difference in many of the following videos!

1. Crayon Pop- Lonely Christmas

This song wins the award for most “Christmas” packed into a single K-pop song in 2013. The cheesy goofiness has really grown on me and while not a super high quality MV, Crayon Pop did what they set out to accomplish following Bar Bar Bar. Their appeal is in their simplicity and catchiness. I think this Christmas track was good choice by their Management company!

I especially loved the song after seeing this video below. Anything that can get Hongki to dance like this has to be good!

2. EXO- Miracles in December

This is a beautiful ballad gifted to us just in time for Christmas. The soulful singing and wintery setting perfectly suit the title “Miracles in December”. While happiness is largely lacking from the video, I can’t help but feel warm inside hearing such wonderful harmonizing. Great job EXO! This reminds me a little of my favorite EXO song “What is Love” and I hope they’ll have many more powerful ballads in the future.

3. SHINee- Colorful

If I need to pick a favorite K-pop gift this season, I’m going to go with this delightful video from SHINee. Not only do we get a fun, catchy song, we also get a wonderful behind the scenes montage. Throw in a Christmas background, and tada! a perfect present for SHINee fans. SHINee has had a very busy year and it’s fun to look back on their different promotions in this MV. I’m impressed.

4. Secret- I Do I Do

Secret’s new upbeat song looks at Christmas as a couples holiday. I mentioned in the intro that Christmas in Korea is largely a day for couples to celebrate together. Should I feel bad that only one of the girls seems to have a date for the big day?

5.Starship Entertainment- Snow Candy

I love when entertainment companies collaborate for the holidays. Here we have Starship Entertainment members K.Will, Sistar, and Boyfriend. K.Will and Hyolyn rightfully dominate the vocals while Boyfriend and the rest of Sistar mostly play around in the Christmas sets looking super adorable. It’s always fun to see the different groups enjoying themselves together. It’s also nice to see K.Will in an MV! It’s such a rare occurrence.

6. AlphaBAT- Surprise Party

AlphaBAT is new to the K-pop world, having just debuted in November. I’m not too familiar with this group, but this song put me in a fun-loving, Christmas-y mood. The concept is adorable and now I’m rather excited to see more from these guys.

7. Bom&Hi- All I Want For Christmas Is You

This is a great rendition of the classic Christmas hit. While the music video is… strange, I think this is one of the best K-pop Christmas song covers I’ve heard. I still don’t quite understand what was going on in the video- lots of white with a rather depressing feel. I’m definitely going to download the song, but I don’t think I need to watch the video again.

8. Cube Entertainment- Christmas Song

Here we have another great company-wide video. What’s not to like when Beast, 4Minute, BTOB, G.NA, and A-Pink collaborate in a nice little single? Everyone looks very festive and the song is catchy and jolly. It would have been nice to see the different bands interact, but I still really enjoyed the set up!

9. 2BiC- Lonely Christmas

Judging from these videos, it seems like one of the biggest fears in Korea is to be single on Christmas. This video is another soulful Christmas-related tune which examines the sadness of being without your loved one on the 25th. The video splits its screen time between a happy couple and a couple that has recently broken up. To see the bliss that the happy couple experiences makes me feel that much worse for the loneliness of the other two. It’s like Valentines day in the U.S., but maybe worse because there isn’t chocolate to help you forget the pain. I’m going to recommend alcohol instead.

10. OK Cat- Christmas

While not a true music video, it certainly fits with the holiday theme of this post. Taecyeon from 2pm has released his own brand called OKCat which features a green cat as the mascot. The video is rather silly, but I’m going to give them an A for effort! Who doesn’t love a giant cat dressed as Santa dancing to holiday tunes?

Merry Christmas! How about some K-pop Christmas Pictures?

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. What is your favorite K-pop Christmas song?

I’m off to enjoy my new G-Dragon concert DVDs!

Rachel