Christmas Tunes

Many years ago my office was across from the closet that held the CD-player that played the music while our telephone callers were on hold. I got drafted to swap out CDs from time to time to give a variety of music to our listeners. When December 1st arrived, I would start the Christmas music. The Christmas music owned by the company was pretty stale, so I would switch it out with some of my own collection. Our employees could set their phones to play the music at their desks and they enjoyed having the option to listen to Christmas music during the month.

With that motivation, I kept acquiring new Christmas CDs every year for several years until at the moment I own an obscene amount of Christmas music. Every year I tell myself I will not buy any more Christmas CDs and every year someone comes out with a Christmas album that I can't pass up. I really try, but I just can't help myself.

This year I've already caved and bought 3 Christmas albums. Someone clued me in that Josh Groban had issued a Christmas CD and I decided that I had to have it. That's all I had intended to get, but then I discovered albums by James Taylor and Anne Murray, both of whom I like very much. (And Anne's was a double album, so that makes 4 CDs added to the collection.)

I mean, really, how many versions of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" does one person need? I may be addicted.

Anyway, I've been listening to Christmas music this week, taking a brief break from audiobooks. I really do have some good albums in my collection and I must say that the James Taylor and Josh Groban albums are very, very good additions.

My favorite songs are sprinkled across genres. My number one favorite song is "Greensleeves", so I love every version of "What Child is This?", particularly the instrumentals and especially the version by pianist Liz Story. After that, I love "O Holy Night" by Sandi Patti, "My Prayer" by Celine Dion and Andre Bocelli, "Mary, Did You Know?" by Kathy Mattea, "The Wexford Carol" by anybody and "Christmas Time's A-Comin'" by Emmylou Harris.

And the one that makes me laugh every time is "The Chipmunk Song".

"Me, I want a hoola-hoop..."

LSW