If you are a Rock Band player and regular downloader of DLC, you may remember what happened (or didn’t happen) last year around the holidays. November 2008 came and went, with no announcement of holiday DLC. The first week of December had a bunch of random singles, none of which were holiday songs.  The second week brought No Doubt’s The Singles album, and no holiday music. The third week brought the first country track pack, and no holiday songs.  Then, on December 23 we were treated to our first holiday DLC.

The 3-pack included one Hanukkah song and two Christmas songs:

It’s a decent pack. But here’s the problem. Hanukkah was nearly two weeks past before this pack was released, and it was only 2 days before Christmas. (For PS3 players, the pack didn’t come out until Christmas day).

Think about holiday music on the radio. It begins the day after Thanksgiving, so people can enjoy it for the month prior to Christmas. With last years Rockin’ the Holidays pack, it came out too late, plain and simple. For me, I bought the pack (but the week of Christmas is crazy and I barely had anytime to play it). I played the songs once on Christmas, and they have been shelved ever since…now, I’m starting to play them again to enjoy them this season.

Is Harmonix making the same mistake again this year? It’s starting to look like it. For the first week of December 2009, we got Nirvana and Night Ranger, no holiday music. For the second week of December, we got Slipknot and others, no holiday music. We are going into the third week of December, and we know that there is a three pack of Green Day coming. I’m hoping that Harmonix rounds out the week with some classic rockin’ holiday songs. I’m hopeful, but not expecting it.