Tag Archives: music

The Best Christmas Album of All Time! (Volume 3)

It’s been five years since I first posted a playlist that I humbly referred to as the Best Christmas Album of All Time. The following year I, with nary a whiff of irony, posted a new playlist that also purports to be the Best Christmas Album of All Time, albeit a second volume. Doing a third entry seemed positively indulgent, so I didn’t…for a while. But Christmas music—for some reason that I’m sure years of therapy would help me uncover—is a thing that makes me happy, and if ever there was a year in need of a little happiness this is it.

So the Best Christmas Album of All Time has grown one volume larger and, as a result, one album better. Feel free to listen along on whatever Google has foisted off on us as this year’s music platform as you read (or just listen and don’t read)(or hey, don’t read OR listen, I’m not your supervisor).

Enjoy! (or not, again, not your supervisor) Continue reading The Best Christmas Album of All Time! (Volume 3)

The Best Christmas Album of All Time! (Volume 2)

 

Last year I shared the best Christmas album of all time, and I thought that this year I would continue the tradition by sharing more songs that I think make the cut.

This year’s selections are a more somber lot, by and large, which I suspect says a lot about my mental state as we bring 2016 to a close. Equally notable is how many more songs that would fall into the “non-traditional” category can be found on this version than on last year’s. It turns out that I don’t love a wide variety of traditional holiday tunes—I more or less ran out last year.

In theory, this link should take you to a Google Play Music playlist of this album. If it works, you’re welcome to use it to listen along. If it doesn’t, what do you want from me, I’m not Google, go bitch to them!

Without any further ado, let’s get to the music…

Continue reading The Best Christmas Album of All Time! (Volume 2)

The Best Christmas Album of All Time!

I am not, in any appreciable way, a Christmas enthusiast. I enjoy giving presents but receive them awkwardly, am often exhausted by the planning and parties and all, and the holiday foods—especially the fixation on peppermint—are tiresome.

But I do love the music. To me, the Christmas experience is my father making the family wait with diminishing patience on the big morning as he makes coffee, brings in the paper,and takes care of the fire in the woodstove—all to a soundtrack Christmas albums that he has carefully (read: slowly) selected and placed in the CD changer.1

In the spirit of the holiday, I wanted to share a collection of what I consider to be a perfect Christmas album—my favorite versions of my favorite classics, along with some non-traditional songs that I find suit the season. Enjoy… (and if you want to go listen to this as a playlist, you’re in luck!) Continue reading The Best Christmas Album of All Time!