Must have Christmas/Holiday music to play this time of year?

[Tonichelle]

I'm uploading my Christmas music to my iPod to blast through the speakers for the next month or so - I have so many favorites (some classics, some completely "sacrilegious" lol) and I can never seem to have enough Christmas music. I know I'm not alone - what are some of your favorite songs/albums?

 

[LegalGirl82]

Yep, you're not alone, Toni!

Just off the top of my head:

James Galway's "A Christmas Carol". I love the whole album, particularly Track #4, Fantasia "I Saw Three Ships".

Kenny Loggins' "Celebrate Me Home"

Albums from my childhood--my mother used to play these in vinyl on her Hi-Fi stereo:

Frank Sinatra's "The Sinatra Christmas Album"
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme's "That Holiday Feeling"
The soundtrack from the Rankin/Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Both the A-side with the songs sung by Burl Ives and company, and the B-side with the instrumentals from the Decca Concert Orchestra.
The Chipmunks' original "Christmas With the Chipmunks"

From my high school band days, Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" and "A Christmas Festival"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRtHdFctdvQ

So many more, I could go on and on...

 

[Olympia]

Amahl and the Night Visitors, a children's opera about the Three Kings that Gian Carlo Menotti wrote for American TV years ago.

Ralph Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on Christmas Carols"

Lots of traditional carols from around the world.

Hey, The Nutcracker!

 

[babyalligator]

Ah the holidays!

Nothing rings in the season quite like Nat King Cole singing about roasting chestnuts.

For traditional carols, The Holly and the Ivy and Greensleeves are personal favorites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXXLSY1oe-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq1_NOy742Y

 

[iluvtodd]

The Nutcracker!

Handel's Messiah

Alvin's Christmas - still cracks me up!

The Boston Pops has a very listenable Holiday Pops CD with a great John Williams song from "Home Alone" (Keith Lockhart conducts).

I like most of Mannheim Steamroller's instrumental music. Same for Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

There are basically 3 holidays songs I will NOT listen to - "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," "Jingle Bell Rock," & Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" - the radio station gets changed when any of those three are played (unless I'm in a store and can't shut them off). I like the traditional carols and classical pieces, plus Jethro Tull's "Christmas Song' (beautiful melody, some scathing lyrics, I must admit, I recorder flute).

Now since we celebrate Chanukah - Peter, Paul, & Mary's "Light One Candle," & "Hayoo, Hayah" (from their PBS Holiday concert), Boston based Jewish-American group Safam (means "moustache" in Hebrew - that's their logo) - they perform songs in Hebrew & English and have some wonderful Chanukah songs based on our Hebrew liturgy - my favorite is "Al HaNissim" - for the miracles, and the acappella group - "The Maccabeats" - they're on Youtube as well. There is much more to Chanukah music than "I Have a Little Dreidl!"