Jamie Alimorad gets you singing ‘Santa Sucks’ this holiday
Everyone has unwrapped socks and underwear at Christmas and tried their best to look thrilled. Jamie Alimorad turned that universal letdown into “Santa Sucks,” a gleefully cheeky holiday song that’s back to brighten the season. The Los Angeles based pop rock singer and songwriter first released it on November 7, 2025 on Jamie Alimorad Music, and its music video took home Best Comedic Video at the Las Vegas Music Video Awards. Now, with Rolling Stone UK naming him its #1 Artist To Watch for 2026, Alimorad is inviting everyone who ever felt shortchanged by the big guy in red to sing along.
It all began with a joke between friends. “‘Santa Sucks’ started as a joke,” Alimorad says. “I was hanging in the studio with my friend Bill Meyers (Earth, Wind & Fire, Gino Vannelli, Madonna) and he asked if I’d ever done a Holiday song. I told him no but have been wanting to. We talked about how it’s always the same old songs you always hear, and newer tunes have become a bit of a trope. Bill then said, ‘You know what would be funny? Writing a song about a kid who gets nothing from Santa.’ I thought, ‘Brilliant!'”
The idea simmered for a while. “I sat with that idea for a year – kinda kicking the tires, but never really going through with it. One day I said, ‘Screw it, let’s just write the song.’ So, I did. I got silly with it. I wrote a bastardized version of The Night Before Christmas, mixed with Ren & Stimpy’s Crock O’ Christmas. It was way too long, but it got my juices flowing.” This time, the words came first. “Typically, I write melody first, but since I knew this was a tongue in cheek song, I put my focus squarely on the lyric. It needed to invoke all the disappointment, and anger that a kid would feel to get nothing Santa! I would sit with the lyrics for days, even weeks. I would leave it and if it kept making me laugh, it would stay. If the laughter faded, it was out.”
The recording sessions came with a twist of irony. “I recorded the song with Jordan Sherman over two days in the middle of an LA heatwave. The perfect weather to get you in the Holiday spirit!” Somewhere between the studio and the sunshine, the song found its heart. “On my way into the studio I started thinking about Christmas’s past. The meaning of Christmas changes throughout the years and what I found in bringing this song to life is, what I miss most about how the Holidays used to be is the togetherness. I loved school in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The concerts, the activities, decorating rooms and lockers, there was a sense of community. For years I had a tradition with friends that we’d get McDonald’s on Christmas Eve before celebrating with our families. Now that I had moved away from home, those traditions were gone.”
So, he brought everyone back together. “‘Santa Sucks’ was a way to get some of us back together. In the end, I got voice memos from over 50 friends and family members to insert into the background vocals on the chorus. If we can’t all be in the same room together, we can all be in the same recording!”
The video kept the family feeling going. “The music video was no different. I’m a music teacher as well, and several of my students star along side me and my friends, bringing this song out of the speakers and onto the screen. I’ve never had more fun recording a song or filming a music video, and I think you can hear it.”
Behind the laughs, the song carries a warm message. “The Holidays can be a strange time. While it’s beautiful, and full of love, warmth, and joy, it can also be stressful, lonely, and even anti-climactic. ‘Santa Sucks’ is for everyone feeling any of those things. We’ve all been disappointed by Santa at some point. We all got our metaphorical socks and underwear, and sometimes even literal! I was trying to find the Christmas spirit again. ‘Santa Sucks’ did that for me. I hope it will for you too.”
Alimorad wrote “Santa Sucks” himself and produced it with Jordan Sherman. The song caps a thrilling run. Originally from Harrison, New York, Alimorad studied Music Technology at Northeastern University, where he became one of Boston’s most popular college acts and was chosen by the university and his class to sing the national anthem on Northeastern Night at Fenway Park. While finishing school, he recorded his first two albums, ‘Cornerstone’ and ‘Words Left Unsaid.’ The ballad “Beautiful” went viral with more than two million YouTube views, and singles including “What You Have,” “She Is…,” “Dancing With You,” “That’s What She Said” and “Crawling Back To Me” earned radio play at home and abroad.
His breakthrough album, ‘This Is Tomorrow Calling,’ teamed him with Grammy nominated singer, songwriter and producer Gino Vannelli. The singles “Not Ready To Say Goodbye” and “Brighter Days,” both produced by Grammy nominee Ross Vannelli, reached the top 10 of the New Music Weekly Hot 100 and earned Hollywood Music In Media Awards nominations for Best Pop Song and Best Male Vocal. “Brighter Days” won the Overall Grand Prize at the 24th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, and Alimorad picked up New Music Awards nominations for AC New Artist of the Year and AC Breakthrough Artist of the Year. He also partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention on the “Brighter Days” video, which features footage from the Out of the Darkness Walk in Santa Monica, where he walked and performed.
On the road, he opened for Gino Vannelli at Beverly Hills’ Saban Theatre, headlined a showcase at SXSW and played The Listening Room in Nashville and the Composer’s Showcase in Las Vegas, with the album also earning a live broadcast on 94.1 FM in Melbourne, Australia. In 2022, Alimorad reunited with Ross Vannelli as producer and co-writer for a string of singles. “Give a Little Lovin'” spent 20 weeks at #1 on the New Music Weekly Indie Top 40, 17 of them in a row, also topped the Indie Hot AC chart, and its video was featured on MTV Spankin’ New and PBS’s Music California. That same year, he swept the LIT Talent Awards, winning all five of his categories: Best New Artist, Best Male Singer, Best Male Artist, Best Adult Contemporary Song and Best Pop Song. “Break the Fall” racked up film festival selections and Best Music Video honours, and “It Never Rains in L.A.” earned four International Singer Songwriters Association Awards nominations and an InterContinental Music Awards nod for Best Pop Song (America). The wins kept coming. In 2024, he was named Best New Artist and performed at the World Entertainment Awards. He kicked off 2025 by selling out Carnegie Hall, and “Fade Into You” reached #34 on the iTunes Pop chart, #1 on Amazon Movers & Shakers and #3 on Amazon Rock, while winning Best Rock Song (North America) at the InterContinental Music Awards. He closed out the year with “Santa Sucks,” his first holiday song.
