'Tis the season for Christmas records, and as long as it's a jolly album, buying yourself a copy can be written off as a holiday investment. Season rip-offs, however, will nip at your wallet and roast your nerves.

The biggest music scam this winter is MTV's TRL Christmas. The flaky album is basically a 16-track commercial.

Willa Ford and Simple Plan beg for cars, condos and clothing lines. Nsync, Weezer, LFO, and Angela Via pine for significant others, and Blink-182 pleads for a moment's privacy. "It's Christmas Time again," the band wails. "It's time to be nice to the people you cannot stand all year."

Keeping in character, the holiday scrooges chase elves through the mall with baseball bats and wind up in the slammer. "And even though the jail didn't have a tree," Blink rants, "Christmas came. . .cuz a guy named Bubba unwrapped my package."

Saturday Night Live's Jimmy Fallon delivers a screaming alternative rock fit about snowball fights. The snot, frozen cocoa and toboggan shields are comical, but Fallon's singing is fruitcake next to Adam Sandler's satire-spiked Hanukah series.

The record's most obvious lemon, however, is POD's "Rock the Party." The single is not a Christmas jingle but a publicity stunt designed as an anecdote for bubble gum pop atheists.

The lights that do work on the string of TRL duds are the cover tunes. Christina Aguilera sings "Angels We Have Heard on High" in old-school Mariah Carey fashion. Sugar Ray karaokes to the Beach Boys' "Little Saint Nick" and Bif Naked wraps a No Doubt-punkness around "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

The record temporarily glitters from the dreamy prose of "Snow Angel" by Little T and One Track Mike.

"Again and again, reclining in heavenly seizures, limbs out, jumping jacks horizontally, proof of our future status left behind in the matted fossils of a winter-wide feather bed."

The poetic piece is chillingly original, and renders TRL Christmas the equivalent of a $15 single with a Trans-Siberian Orchestra bonus track.

Makeshift instruments constructed with the socks and underwear from Aunt Flo are more festive than MTV's compilation of coal.

Also this season, the vocal trio of Destiny's Child introduced its first holiday record, Eight Days of Christmas. The album's 14 tracks mix tremendous lungs and intense soul with urban beats.

The three wise women also get their own solos. Beyonce Knowles' sugar coats "Silent Night," Kelly Rowland gently glides through "Do You Here What I Hear" and Michelle Williams' low suede tones ignite "O Holy Night."

The record's bonus track, a string version of the group's current single, "Emotion," is arguably better than the original.

The falsetto cheer, however, often runs too thick. Trimming some of the vocal excess would thin out the icing overload and still showcase the group's immense talents. As it stands now, the ho-ho is a little so-so.

Now That's What I Call Christmas, on the other hand, is a sugarplum aphrodisiac. For the price of one CD, Now is two discs of timeless Christmas classics performed by the artists that sing them best.

John and Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band sing a sobering "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Burl Ives--they master the yuletide classics that generations have grown up with.

Now offers three-dozen carols. With originals by Harry Connick, Jr., Celine Dion, Nsync, Paul McCartney, Joe and Britney Spears, it's the most varied Christmas collection on the shelf. Whether it's Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" or Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town," the record jogs old memories and nourishes new ones.

Finally, for those mining couch cushions to survive the tail end of the semester, decent Christmas albums exist for less than $5. Try Jimmy Buffet's "Christmas Island," or, for a soothing study atmosphere, fish a classical Christmas CD out of a discount bin.

With a little market scrutiny, a rollicking record can prevent years of silent nights.