If there's one thing I think of when it comes to Christmas, it's Playboy.
Every year, before I started stealing the Christmas issues from friends and relatives, I longed for late November when I got that first peek at the holiday issue of Hugh Hefner's crowning glory.
It was officially the Christmas season.
Since the beginning of Playboy's history there have been holiday pictorials, cartoons with Santa Claus in predictably vulgar situations, naked girls playing in the snow for no reason, and gift guides for guys who can afford a stereo that costs as much as a new car.
The first Playboy Christmas icon was the 1955 shot of Bettie Page trimming a tree in the nude (as she was wont to do). Over the years many women have tried to replicate that pose. Even I tried myself.
(NSFW material ahead.)
Who could forget Carmen Electra's winter-wonderland fantasy in 2000, or 2007's Kim Kardashian shoot? For most year-end issues, the magazine wrangles in a pretty big figure, no pun intended, as a way to drive sales and because naked chicks are just awesome.
Anyhow, here are some of the best covers I found while doing the painstaking job of scouring for vintage Playboy covers. I swear this place is a prison.
