Every November, America climbs up to its attic and drags out Jose Feliciano.

What he does up there the rest of the year is anybody’s guess, but for the next four weeks, he’ll as much a part of our life as George W. Bush and Kirk Ferentz. He’ll sing “Feliz Navidad” for us on the radio, one of the nearly three big hits he had, but that’s not all. Oh no, not even close. He’ll also favor us with “Feliz Navidad” done as a tribute to tacos.

Then it’s back to the attic.

But he’s not the only guy who shows up only when the weather turns cold. Once upon a time, Burl Ives was considered a big-time movie actor. But we wouldn’t spend much time thinking about him if it weren’t for his annual hit song “A Holly Jolly Christmas” — plus that TV version of the Rudolph story done with “Animagic,” a technology that appears to date back to the Aztecs.

Our wintertime music tradition started picking up speed like a sled on ice when Irving Berlin sat down at a piano and played his new tune, “White Christmas,” for Bing Crosby. According to one story, Bing rolled his eyes so hard that bystanders could hear a squishing sound, but that’s not the point.

The point is, when that song went beyond hit status to become a tradition, it dawned on everyone with a microphone that there was money to be made, and that it could be made all over again every single December. Since then, every act from Alvin and the Chipmunks to Jessica Simpson has tried to elbow its way onto the payroll.

Finding songs to sing is not a problem. As with the mailing of Christmas gifts, the challenge is in the packaging. Other cultures may stick with the same unchanging rituals for centuries, but that’s just another example of their weak grasp of marketing concepts. Here, Christmas tradition means: Transport us back in time so we can experience our childhood again — but let’s see some better production values, OK?

So we get endless variations on the same themes. From Andy Williams singing “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” to Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis as the McKenzie Brothers rendering – and we mean that in the slaughterhouse sense – “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” we’ve heard hundreds of people take their shot at a handful of tunes.

Chip Davis of Omaha made the biggest impact since “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” when he sent the Christmas classics on a blind date with 18th-century chamber music. The result was a string of Mannheim Steamroller recordings that were inescapable for years. Unfortunately, he started thinking that he, not Christmas, was magic, so he tried to expand to other holidays. At last check, Mannheim Steamroller’s “Halloween” ranked 4,357 on Amazon.com’s list of music sellers.

Shake it off, Chip. At least you have Burl and Jose to keep you company in the attic all summer.