Christmas at Ground Zero

"Christmas at Ground Zero" is an original song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is done in the style of The Ronettes' numerous 1960s-era Christmas carols, with bells and a saxophone section, and has pretty much the same meter as another novelty Christmas song, I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas by Yogi Yorgesson. It is one of Yankovic's darkest songs, alongside "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (which is also a Christmas novelty song) and "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung."

The expression "ground zero" was largely connected with nuclear explosions at the time this song was written. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the term was co-opted by the media to refer to the large hole over which the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed in the attacks had stood. (An unrelated folk ballad with the same title was released by a Michigan musician in December 2001, with all profits going to families of the September 11 victims and to a Michigan chapter of NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders), a charity benefiting research into rare disorders.) Due to the new associations of the title, Yankovic's song received far-reduced airplay from 2001 onward, but continues to appear in novelty programming such as the Dr. Demento show.