Santa Claus & The Christmas Trees

Santa Claus and the Christmas Trees was a novelty band created by Polydor Records in 1981.

History
In 1981, a Stiff Records novelty band, The Snowmen, had a Christmas hit single. For the following year, Polydor A&R agent and occasional producer, Dennis Munday, whose main work was promoting post-punk groups such as The Jam, put together a bunch of session musicians to record a similar 45, this time as a medley of traditional Christmas songs in a pub singalong style. The song reached the top 20, and the musicians appeared on Top of the Pops on 16 September 1982. The band also recorded an X-rated version of the medley, under the same catalogue number (IVY 1), and with the same b-side, but with no identification on the sleeve or label.

Polydor also commissioned the same musicians to produce a single for Valentine's Day in 1983, a medley of love songs under the name Valentino and the Valentines; it was not a hit. Undaunted, Polydor released a second Christmas medley, also accompanied by an X-rated version, at the end of the year, and it also made the top 40, but there were no further releases from the concept.