You’ve spent a long day shopping — traveling on roads filled with cars helmed by distracted drivers, circling outside of shopping centers as you look for a space to park your car, making your way through crowds, searching for the perfect gift. You finally return home, wanting to be excited about Christmas but see no way out of your exhausted state. Allow Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom to add a musical salve to your tattered nerves with A Peace of Us. The longtime alt rock darlings — Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (Luna) and Sonic Boom (Spacemen3, Spectrum) — embrace the emotional turbulence, nostalgia, melancholy and bliss of Christmastime on the trio’s collaborative release. After they worked on several tunes back in 2020 and the Luna duo did an Xmas Eve livestream in 2021, a full album made sense for 2024. The material casually skates around early ‘60s pop, garage, country, James Bond soundtracks, Christmas carols, and electronica in a manner that transformed to fit the personalities of its creators. It rarely raises the bpm or the volume and intensity but that’s the point. Its 14 tracks are split between Velvet Underground-derived inspirations and more traditional experiences. The opening track, a cover of Purple Mountains’ “Snow is Falling in Mountain,” revels in its awe of nature putting a freeze on the inhabitants of the concrete jungle. Set up as a pulsing synth-driven soundtrack for a Britta and Sonic duet, Willie Nelson’s bittersweet “Pretty Paper” subtly soars among its kraut rock foundation. The image of the white stuff returns on “Snow” while “Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?” contains a childlike quality to it that’s also appealing for adults. Those numbers as well as “You’re All I Want for Christmas,” “He’s Coming Home” and “If We Make It Through December” feature lead vocals by Britta, who brings a shining spark that offsets the resigned awe, sadness and sentimentality of the Dean sung numbers — “Old Toy Trains,” “Stille Nacht,” (“Silent Night” sung in German) and “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away.” In a union of delight and disappointment, joy and wonderment, the two sing together on “Peace On Earth/ Little Drummer Boy” and “Merry Xmas (War Is Over)” Ending the album with those songs lends itself to the enduring hope that the new year brings better interactions between one human to another.