Christmas Rapping: Jim Carrey, Busta Rhymes, And Eazy-E Bring The Ho, Ho, Hoes

But it's going to take a little more to bring your Christmas party to the next level.

While the traditional seasonal standards are... standard, the surefire way to put the star on your tree -- or the eggs in your nog -- is to put on the best rap Christmas classics.

Our suggestion: put the computer beneath the mistletoe and bump these classics.

Kurtis Blow's break-out single helped land him rap's first major, with CBS, in 1979. It's since become one of the most sampled rap songs in hip-hop history, with snippets heard everywhere from Beastie Boys' "Hold It Now Hit It" to Next's "Too Close." (It was also the first rap song performed on television in several countries.) Blow still performs it to this day, affirming that Christmas is indeed one thing he knows.

"X-Mas Rap" was released at the same time as the movie Beat Street, to capitalize off of the live performance of it in the movie. Because the scene got so popular, later pressings of the song changed the title to "Santa's Rap" and took out the foul language to make it suitable for the whole family. It's clearly more than a novelty song; the energy and strength of the performance is as strong live as it is on wax. Kool Moe Dee's disenchanted Santa captures the frustrations of the holidays, and Doug E. Fresh blesses the track with one of his best recorded beat-box performances.

With the popularity of the A Very Special Christmas compilation, many of us grew up with "Christmas in Hollis" as the only rap song we were allowed to play on our parents' stereo during the holidays. A charity single that's become the "cool Yule" signifier in media rangingeverything from Die Hard to "The Office". A 1997 A Very Special Christmas compilation had a Reverend Run-led posse cut of "Santa Baby" featuring all the top rappers 1997 had to offer.