It’s easy for me to get worked up about this; I just ride in on the surf of everyone else’s bitterness. But even as I can get carried away in paroxysms of fury at “Little Drummer Boy” and techno editions of “Sleigh Ride,” I think it is also worth remembering (for me and you alike) that Christmas means more things than fatty rum drinks, crammed full malls and caterwauled carols. You’ve got to find the good and try to ignore the bad.

In his faux-memoir Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor writes about the town’s Catholic priest, Father Emil, who foregoes a second finger of brandy on Christmas eve because

[e]ven on Christmas Eve, one finger is the correct portion, by him, and it’s a miserable mistake to think that two would be twice as good, and three even better, or putting both hands around the bottle and climbing into it. That’s no Christmas. The true Christmas bathes every little thing in light and makes one cookie a token, one candle, one simple pageant more wonderful than anything seen on stage or screen.

Christmas is indeed more special the more simple things are kept. If you’re a Christian, better to focus on the simple beauty of Jesus’ life work, and celebrate the joys of family and friends. If you’re not, it is a season to find solace in friends or family, or the simple pleasures of solitary contemplation and silly Santa headgear.

This all comes to mind because a few weeks ago there crossed my desk a modest and gentle-hearted Christmas music compilation that I actually enjoy, curated by maverick filmmaker John Waters. Waters’ films are like a grotesque inverse of Keillor’s pretty small-town jewel boxes. Of course, where Keillor is likely to serve the Lundbjergs a plate of tuna hotdish in that slow tweed voice of his, Waters is more likely to serve Divine a dogshit sandwich in a nasal Baltimore honk. Still, at the core of their best works is a sweetness that makes them kindred souls.

A John Waters Christmas (which came out in 2004) is a slam-dunk collection of Christmas music that fully embraces the cheesy, kitschy side as well as the sour grudging side of the holiday, and spikes both with a bracing dose of the bizarre.

Given that it is John Waters it’s a no brainer that he would have included something from sweet-natured freakshow Tiny Tim, in this case “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Tiny Tim’s Disney counterparts The Chipmunks show up too, with a loopy version of “Sleigh Ride” that hammers the irritating little tune into your head with brio.

Even better than these already high points of kidding-or-not Christmasania are the less well known selections. Waters has managed to track down a rare copy of the legendary “Santa Claus is a Black Man” by Teddy Vann, and he includes it as the capper on a wide-ranging set of outsider Christmas music ranging from the high camp of the sad-orphan ballad “Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child’s Prayer)” and treacly story “Little Mary Christmas” to the bitter empty-wallet rant of “Here Comes Fatty Claus” (with the immortal chorus “Here comes fatty with his sack of shit"). These are songs you can’t believe were ever recorded, much less released to the public. Were the artists serious? Could they possibly have been serious? If so, what were they thinking?

However, Waters didn’t put this together to mock Christmas with chintzy foolishness but to celebrate the myriad ways people approach Christmas, positive and negative. Thus in the midst of all the demented novelty sing-alongs and syrupy dying-orphan songs there is time for real beauty. “First Snowfall,” a fuzzy winter instrumental by the Chicago hipster band The Coctails, is a gorgeous meditation full of mellow vibraphone and Theremin. This quiet piece is complemented by the classic doo-wop of “Christmas Time is Here” by Stormy Weather and the Motown sound of “I Wish You A Merry Christmas” by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva. All three are high-quality and perfectly serious well wishes for the season. Moreover, let’s be frank. Despite his bizarre voice and appearance Tiny Tim wasn’t putting us on, and his rendition of “Rudolph” is as sweet and true as can be.

This is the key. No matter how outrageous Waters’ films may sometimes be, they retain an innocence at their heart that disarms all the layers of winking irony that viewers lay on top.

If he had been joking the joke would have fallen flat. But he’s not, and A John Waters Christmas ends up a surprisingly fine collection of Christmas novelties.

With his Baltimore charm, his little mustache, and his sly smirky face, Waters is the master of the tacky. Yet he truly loves tackiness for the modest sincerity at its core. Like his movies, A John Waters Christmas sums up all the varied sides of the Christmas season from the bitter to the lovely (not so much with the Jesus-y, but plenty of folks have that covered already) with a gentle winsome cheeriness.

This collection deserves to be on the shelf of anyone with a sweet-cynical bent and a penchant for the weird. This will be in my holiday rotation for years and years to come.

(This post also appears at blogcritics.org.)