Merry Christmas is the tenth self-released music cassette album by singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, recorded in 1988.

[1] The back of the cover features a typed message from Daniel: "Thanks to everyone who's helped in the past year, especially those who have bought and played my album.

The period between Continued Story and Merry Christmas was one of increasing mental de-stability for Johnston, ultimately leading to his institutionalisation in August of 1988.

Johnston began speaking in different voices and accused his siblings of teaching their children Satanist practices.

Shortly afterwards, Louis Black found Johnston at The University of Texas at Austin, where he preached in a river before being forcibly removed by the police.

At the same time, Jeff Tartakov attempted to expand Johnston's relationships with other contemporary musical acts, such as Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Steve Shelly of Sonic Youth.

[2] That year an early version of 'Don't Play Cards With Satan' featured on the Butthole Surfers produced album 'A Texas Trip'.

[2] Jeff Tartakov called the show bizarre, as it featured Johnston chastising the audience and 'forcing his religious beliefs on them.

They eventually found him in a hotel parking lot, but he was still refusing to go home, insisting he was on a mission from God and needed to stay for two more weeks.

He believed that Satan was trying to stop him from leaving the town and ended up staying in the bowery, where he was assaulted and had his suitcase stolen.

On April 22, he was admitted into a mental hospital in Bellevue, before being released due to a clerical error and opening for Firehose at CBGB's that same night.

He was eventually returned home to West Virginia, with a greatly increased reputation due to his New York hijinks.

He began to pound at her door, terrifying the lady and causing her to jump out of her second-story window; leading her to break both of her ankles.

The same recording of 'Golly Gee' was later included on the 2023 expanded re-issue of Johnston's 1981 Songs of Pain album, alongside seven otherwise unreleased tracks.

An extended version of Whiz Kid appeared on the Laurie EP in 1992, with a writing credit to Mark Hartenbach.