The 10 best geeky Christmas videos, from Star Wars Holiday Special to Halo 3

Christmas isn't always the best time of year for geeks. Everyone else is arguing with their families in the real world, instead of with strangers in chatrooms. The cinemas are full of twee, child-friendly films with names like The Mistletoe Conundrum, with barely a Star Trek spin-off in sight. And people keep buying you Halo 3 as a present, when ODST has been out since September.

So to help them get through the festive period, we've put together a quick list of geek-friendly Christmas videos, ranging from the weird (Do They Know It's Christmas as sung by a gaggle of Warhammer Space Marines) to the really weird (Halo's Master Chief accidentally murders Santa) to the genuinely unforgivable (the official 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special).

1. - "Happy Life Day"

We'll use the worst for first: what was George Lucas thinking? Princess Leia sings an excruciatingly sappy song about Life Day (the Rebel Alliance's version of Christmas, apparently) to a bunch of Wookiees in dresses, while Han Solo grins unconvincingly in the background. However much they paid you, guys, it wasn't worth it. Even Chewbacca looks nonplussed.

2. A Cold-Blooded Halo 3 Christmas

After the sickening bilge of the Star Wars Holiday Special, cleanse your palate with this hilariously brutal little Yuletide ditty, sung by Halo's Master Chief after accidentally popping a cap in the back of Santa's head. Not suitable for children for reasons of strong language, graphic(ish) violence, and of course the death and subsequent dismemberment of Saint Nicholas.

3. A Very Merry Star Wars Christmas: C-3PO sings to R2-D2

There's obviously something about the Star Wars universe that inspires hideously saccharine Christmas songs. For some reason, voice-of-C-3PO Anthony Daniels (we're fairly sure it really is him) agreed to make this odd little offering, in which he sings about the beauty of music to a presumably baffled R2, even as Darth Vader's forces take over their ship.

4. Wish You A Merry World of Warcraft Christmas

Yes, it's virtual Christmas in the world's most famous massively multiplayer online role-playing game! Or MMORPG, for short. Who needs to travel to meet anyone for the holidays when you can all enjoy a skullful of mulled mead together online? And then decapitate one another with the +3 Spatula of Elvenbane afterwards. We particularly like the character mounted on a reindeer. A nice touch.

5. The 12 Days of Geek Christmas: A Cartridge in Atari

Altogether now: "Five LCDs! Four remote controls, three flash drives, dual channel RAM and a cartridge in Atari". Well, we couldn't do this without one "12 Days of Christmas" ripoff, could we?

6. Sing-a-long-a-Christmas with Star Trek: Voyager

A sweet little montage from everyone's least favourite Star Fleet series to the tune of Shakin' Stevens Merry Christmas Everyone. Don't worry, all you hyperventilating Seven of Nine fans, she gets plenty of screen time. And is that Captain Janeway she's snogging at the end? Surely not.

7. Do They Know It's Warhammer 40K Christmas?

Yes, the Space Marines and their various interstellar enemies all get together for Band Aid 40008. Who knew the genestealers were so public-spirited?

8. Geek Christmas tree

Proof that geeks have just as poor taste in tree decorations as the rest of us: a white plastic tree with LED lights and DVD ornaments. Still, at least they haven't done it to the outside their house like you see in small towns in Suffolk, all giant inflatable Santas and animated sleighs and so on. Hideous.

9. Befriend a geek this Christmas

Like we said at the beginning, it's a difficult time of year for geeks, this. This helpful guide shows how to help the ones you know through it. We reckon, if you're going to play them at board games, make it Risk. Or Warhammer Fantasy Battle, if you can face it.

10. Happy Creepy Anime Christmas

Does anyone else find anime and manga deeply creepy? It's the school uniforms and childish faces on anatomically improbable women, mainly. Anyway, here are various anime types to the sound of Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for Christmas is You". We don't know, but we imagine some Japanese man put this together as a Yuletide love letter to his virtual girlfriend.