Yuletide Carols: Christmas Music!

[dwanollah]

Well, holiday music, to be sure. But... 'tis the season!

I am obsessed with Christmas music. The Husband-Type Man and I horde it, make tons of weird CDs for people, blast it for all the month of December, and take great pride in some of our more spectacular finds (like the Star Wars Christmas Album, lo these many years ago).

"Christmas Piglet" by the Presidents of the United States of America is a favorite.

It ain't all about the wacky tunes, though. I've 'fessed before, nothing can make me start bawling quicker than Judy Garland's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I actually have to listen to it a bunch of times in a row in private and get it all out of my system every year, lest I be caught off-guard and start crying, like, in the middle of the local K-Mart, like I did one year.

[mrpancake]

I love Christmas music, too. It's just so cheerful, and I really enjoy the holidays. At our house, Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving. We load the CD player, then get down the boxes full of Christmas stuff. My mom hates the the tacky outside stuff, but loves indoor "spinning and twirling" as she calls it, where everything is Christmas. Don't know if it's abnormal, but we have a set of Christmas dishes that we use. Like a set of 12 place settings or so, with dinner plates, salad plates, saucers, cups, and bowls. It's a bit out of hand. I like all Christmas music, but nothing too funky, because I prefer traditional-style Christmas. Can't wait for the holidays...

[Brookie]

"My Grownup Christmas List" - Natalie Cole or Amy Grant. I sing along with nearly every "Christmas" tune on the radio, CD player, tape player etc. because I've grown up singing and I do it quite well, but I cannot make it through this song without bursting into tears. At this stage of my life, what the song speaks to and speaks of is really what I want for Christmas. Everyone would have a friend, wars would never start. All of it.

[foxyepicurean]

My favorites are the really old school 40s and 50s versions of traditional songs--basically, it's not really Christmas if Nat "King" Cole and Bing Crosby aren't crooning in the background. Hearing those guys sing those songs brings back so many good memories from my (disgustingly idyllic) childhood. My dad is so sweetly sentimental about holiday traditions and he would start playing Christmas music in August if we'd let him. He doesn't sing around us very much, but he ALWAYS sings along with Nat and Bing. As do we all.

I also have a couple of Amy Grant CDs and a Vince Gill one that I also enjoy, but they only make it into the rotation occasionally. I love "My Grownup Christmas List", and I also love "Breath of Heaven" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" by Amy Grant.

I love the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky (who knew I could spell that correctly?) so much that I was going to have a Christmas wedding just so I could use the music in our ceremony. We had to change the date to October, but I still used the Chinese Dance for our Flower Girl and Ring Bearer and the Waltz of the Flowers for my own processional.

[dwanollah]

I'm with you on the old stuff, Foxy. I have a stash of those Time-Life records, plus every Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Doris Day, Frankie, Nat, Der Bingle, Ella, the whole gang! (When Dino sings about a "Marshmallow World," doesn't it sound like he's singing about anything BUT Christmas and snow...?) They sound better on scratchy vinyl somehow....

[sleepy]

I have to fess up to thinking of Christmas music as a guilty pleasure. Everyone in my family (including me) are atheists, so Christmas doesn't mean much more than, well, this is when everyone can get time off work to visit each other. But I like Christmas music. It kind of makes me feel like a hypocrite. And I like putting up a Christmas tree, too, but again, hypocrite. Sigh.

[dnt]

I've been trying to find a decent Christmas CD that includes "Christmas in Hollis." I don't think there is one, though. And I'm just not that big a Run DMC fan.

[dwanollah]

It's on one of the Very Special Christmas albums, isn't it...?

Email me, DNT... I could burn you a copy. For a price. Say... 50 Hail Dwanollahs?

;D

[ownlife]

I like listening to the radio stations that play Christmas songs 24/7 during the holiday season. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is a year-round favorite CD in my house. I have to hear the barking dogs version of "Jingle Bells" at least once during the holidays.

[Ripley]

It's on one of the Very Special Christmas albums, isn't it...?

Yes, it's on the first one. And that happens to be one of my favorite Christmas CDs.

Don't feel bad Sleepy. While I don't consider myself a Christian, I do belive in God, and this time of year makes me feel very uncomfortable. I just consider that I am going along with the Western cultural norms, which allows me to participate in society.