<p>I just popped in my “A Very Special Christmas” cd (first of a series produced as a fundraiser for Special Olympics) and am enjoying “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-D.M.C. What’s your favorite Christmas music? What makes you cringe when you hear it in the grocery store?</p>
<p>The song that makes me cringe: I think it is called 'I want a hippopotomus for Christmas". Can’t stand it. When it is on the radio, I change the station.</p>
<p>Favorite Christmas CD: Amy Grant.</p>
<p>Our holiday tradition is to trim the tree listening to Handel’s Messiah. My other favorite Christmas recording is from France from Les Compagnons de la Chanson.</p>
<p>My favorite Christmas song is “Snoopy’s Christmas.” I am madly, passionately in love with Snoopy.</p>
<p>Now you know my deepest secret. Don’t tell anyone else, ok?</p>
<p>I generally enjoy Christmas music, particularly when the King of My Universe plays it on his clarinet (let him play “I’ll be home for Christmas” and watch me melt), but it’s become so pervasive on the radio now that it’s not special anymore and has lost something for me.</p>
<p>My favorite is a cd with a mix of Christmas styles- classical, jazz and choral called simply The Christmas Collection. I hate songs that are sappy like the one about the little boy and his shoes and anything by the Chipmunks. Oh Zoosermom, I and my oldest d. both secretly love Snoopy’s Christmas too!</p>
<p>LOVE Amy Grant… (the Home for Christmas CD). My other fave is the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas, which has just about everything! And the Barenaked Ladies Holiday CD…come to think of it I have lots of favorites!</p>
<p>CRINGE at anything by Mannheim Steamroller. Makes me want to jump off a bridge with George Bailey.</p>
<p>Love the Charlie Brown Christmas stuff.
And Nat King Cole.
I cringe at “Grandma Got runover by a Reindeer”…yuk.
Love Silent Night.</p>
<p>I love the older Christmas albums from the fifties and sixties. Nat King Cole, James Brown(Santa’s got a Brand New Bag! whoa!), Elvis, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra…etc. And my fave…A Phil Spector Christmas (Darlene Love and the Ronettes!!) H was organizing the Christmas music on his hard drive and found that we have 487 selections. Through the year I frequent used record stores and swap meets and pick up old Christmas albums as inexpensive gifts for friends. The cover art alone is worth the price (generally about $10). This year I found a Chipmunks Christmas, two great Elvis albums and two Sing-a-long with Mitch.</p>
<p>But no Mannheim Steamroller. I can’t stand that stuff.</p>
<p>DH forgot to take down my box of Christmas CDs now I’m stuck listening to what’s on cable. I miss my Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli. Plus, I have a collection of classics - the Carpenters!</p>
<p>As my family knows, I love (and own) all Christmas music and I usually start listening to some (small doses) in November. The artists getting the most play this year are Dave Koz & Friends (jazz sax), Chris Botti - December (trumpet) and Ottmar Liebert - Christmas guitar. And I do enjoy all the traditional favorites, too…Bing, Nat, Frank, etc.</p>
<p>The one song that makes me cringe though, is Santa Baby…tacky.</p>
<p>I really enjoy
Andrea Bocelli;s my Christmas.
the Mormon Tarbernacle Choir</p>
<p>least favorite
Grandma got run over by a reindeer</p>
<p>Phil Spector’s Christmas album is amazing. Probably my all-time favorite. I grew up with Nat King Cole, so his music still speaks to my heart.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, some of Celine Dion’s stuff is lovely. Her versions of O Holy Night and O Come all Ye Faithful are very similar to what’s sung in my church.</p>
<p>Darlene Love’s annual performance on Letterman (Christmas-Baby Please Come Home) is something we try to catch every year. If you havent seen it—check it out on Youtube.</p>
<p>The Christmas music in our house consists of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby. My absolute favorite Christmas song is “Jingle Bell Rock” as sung by Brenda Lee. Can’t explain it. Just get all happy and start dancing everytime I hear it. I put on a few classical music pieces that were written for the Christmas season during the days leading up to Christmas, but it’s the music I mentioned above that gets the honor of playing on our sound system during Christmas cookie baking time and during Christmas day.</p>
<p>I love the Windham Hill “A Winter’s Solstice” CD series - every year the solo cello playing “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” brings me to tears.</p>
<p>Now every time I hear that “Christmas Shoes” song, I cringe…</p>
<p>If you want to listen to Christmas music as you surf CC, you stream it 24/7 from my favorite radiostation’s website:</p>
<p>[103.7</a> The Mountain - KMTT Radio Seattle, World Class Rock, Concerts](<a href=“http://www.kmtt.com/]103.7”>http://www.kmtt.com/)</p>
<p>Scroll down and click on the Mountain’s Music Channel (the picture with falling snowflakes).</p>
<p>I’m going to get the new Bob Dylan’s Christmas CD - I heard a few songs on the radio and I liked it!!</p>
<p>There’s an 80ish collection called Edge of Christmas that has, among other great songs, ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by the Waitresses, ‘2000 Miles’ by The Pretenders, and the one which makes me cry every single time I hear it, ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ by the Pogues.</p>
<p>Hands down, my favorite is the Chieftains’ Bells of Dublin, with either of a couple of Messiah recordings coming in second.</p>
<p>I like a very wide variety of Christmas music, but there <em>is</em> one song I absolutely can’t stand: “Dominic the Donkey.”</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure we had a thread like this going a couple of years ago; I’m going to see if I can dig it up because it had some great suggestions. </p>
<p>Found it: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/420671-too-early-ask-christmas-music-recommendations.html?highlight=Christmas+songs[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/420671-too-early-ask-christmas-music-recommendations.html?highlight=Christmas+songs</a> I see that I went into much more embarrassing detail there about the variety of Christmas music we own. :D</p>
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Now you’re talking. I love “Christmas Wrapping,” and “2000 Miles” is just magical, one of the great Christmas songs of all time. I don’t know the Pogues song, I’ll have to check it out.</p>
<p>Another one that chokes me up every time is Judy Garland’s original version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” </p>
<p>At the other end of the seriousness spectrum, I will confess to a taking a guilty pleasure in the Royal Guardsmen’s Snoopy/Red Baron Christmas song (I forget the exact title, but the chorus goes “Christmas bells, those Christmas bells…ringing through the land,” etc.)</p>
<p>And I love “Santa Baby.” I find its open satire of holiday greed refreshing next to the solemn, mawkish commercialism in a song like “Silver Bells” (that one really makes me cringe).</p>
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<p>Snoopy’s Christmas. You can just really always count on Snoopy to bring holiday joy, win wars, pretty much anything.</p>