On the song topic...

There are so many different versions of various songs. 

For an example... Little drummer Boy.

There's the traditional, Jars of Clay did a version and For King and Country released a version. Jars of Clay was the version I tended to favorite until today when I saw a recorded version of For King and Country's version today. Now I'm leaning towards that one. 

Do you have a favorite version of a traditional Christmas song? 

I am now listening to A Christmas Carol read by Tom Baker as I have done every year for the past few years during the holiday season.  I think Tom Baker’s voice is perfect for reading the story. It is the best audio version of the story that I ever heard.  🙂

Do you have a favorite version of a traditional Christmas song? Ooh, @starkat, love that question, I actually heard a metal version of Little Drummer Boy recently, it's not a song I normally enjoy, but this version was super cool. And I really love Wolves At The Gate's version of Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

Gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Most will be on Christmas Day in the morning starting with the stockings, but a few will be opened on Christmas Eve.
Real or artificial Christmas tree? Sadly, artificial. Would love to have a real tree again, it's been ages once we had one.
When do you decorate? The day after Thanksgiving with lots of Christmas music.
Favorite songs? The short list: What Child Is This?, O Holy Night, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Immanuel (by Michael Card), Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.
Favorite music album? Michael Card's The Promise, Fernando Ortega's Christmas Songs,  and Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas 1984.
Favorite movies? Keeping it simple this year, We're No Angels 1955.
Favorite books? A Cowboy Christmas by Audrey Wood, Pony Express Christmas by Sigmund Brouwer, and Immanuel: Reflections on the Life of Christ by Michael Card.
Favorite tradition? I have such a hard time with this one, I don't really thinking of the things my family does as individual traditions...it's just the whole Advent/Christmas season. It's how we celebrate: the Advent calendar, music (specifically the hymns), the food, doing puzzles together, drinking coffee, giving gifts (often wrapped to look like something totally different from what it is), family time, etc.  
Favorite foods or recipes? Sugar cookies with buttercream frosting, spritz cookies, peppernuts, fudge with walnuts, Christmas coffee.
Colored or white lights? Warm white on the Christmas tree, all the rest colored.
Do you celebrate Advent? Yes. We have a daily Advent calendar that is one of my favorite parts of the whole season. Sadly we haven't been able to find our Advent wreath since the last move and so we don't have any candles on the dining room table again, next year we have to find it.
What do you want for Christmas?  I already bought the Haunted Cosmos book and Snoopy playing cards, so more books on the Crusades, natural food coloring, and Brian Sauve's Catechism Songs are on my list of items I would like to have...wow, that looks funny together.   

Merry Christmas!

Does your town have Christmas lights?  The small town in which I live has them on the stores, and there is a large real tree with multicolored lights in a small park. I remember that there were lighted decorations on the street lights when I was a child, but I guess they finally wore out with many years of use. There are still decorations in some of the stores.  It does look very nice in the downtown area, and some of the houses have large Christmas cards with lights on the front lawn.  It is quite a beautiful town at this time of year. 

Gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? It's been a tradition for us to open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas day

Real or artificial Christmas tree? We have been doing artificial trees for years. It comes in handy so that you could keep using it every year. I even have a Charlie Brown Tree (with the red ornament and blue fabric for Linus's blanket).

When do you decorate? Well, somewhere between After Thanksgiving and before Christmas

Favorite songs? So many to choose from. I usually like the traditional, like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Angels We Have Heard On High. There are also different carols from around the world, like Carol of the Bells in Ukraine and Babu Jesu in Italy.

Favorite music album? I have a lot of Christmas albums. It's so many to choose from. It would probably be Handel's Messiah. There's even the best known piece, The Hallelujah Chorus, that's played around Christmas time.

Favorite movies? So many to choose from.

Favorite books? Maybe A Christmas Carol.

Favorite tradition?

Favorite foods or recipes? Gingerbread cookies are probably my favorite

Colored or white lights? A little bit of both.

Do you celebrate Advent? Yes. My church does lights up advent candles each Sunday leading up to Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas? Peace on Earth

Do you have a favorite version of a traditional Christmas song?

Great question!

Two examples that come to mind are the Casting Crowns live version of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (which is a different tune than the usual, but I think it is easier to sing and I just enjoy the performance they give) and Celtic Woman's version of "The Little Drummer Boy." Maybe I heard "Drummer Boy" too much as a child, but I never really cared for it. But this version opens and ends with a drummer and a chorus doing a Latin Gregorian chant-style verse, and I like it). I've also come to appreciate the song's message that Jesus is pleased when we offer Him the best of our abilities, even if we don't have material wealth to give).

I went caroling with a group from my church tonight. To be honest...I didn't enjoy it that much. I love a lot of Christmas carols but when you have to sing the same ones over and over again, it gets a little monotonous, especially since our group always sings the ones I don't like as much, like Joy to the World, ad infinitum but they never sing my favorites, like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, unless I specifically request them.

But I don't regret my participation. The group visits a lot of elderly and infirm people in our neighborhood who can't get out much. They really seem to appreciate it. Some of them even cry (with joy.) So it's important. 

Tomorrow night, I'm going to have some family over and we'll sing carols again. I enjoy that much more since we only do each song once and we get to do all the verses. 

This Christmas album by the Waverly Consort is such lovely music for the holiday season. I saw them twice in person in their concerts at the beautiful chapel, which is located at the same college that I graduated from so many years ago.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas Eve and have a joyous Christmas tomorrow.

A merry Christmas to one and all! LONG LIVE ASLAN!

Incidentally I just visited a church where the bulletins had a quote from The Last Battle on the front cover: "A stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world..."
Good to know they had a loyal Narnian on staff!
Anyway, here's hoping Father Christmas brings
everyone something good. Merry Christmas!

Good mortereve and a blessed Christmas to you all!

It's sunny and mild here in Northeast England, which is cheerful. I'm having a quiet day, with a shared meal this evening. 

🫂🤎

Merry Christmas! 

My day has been fairly quiet. Tasty food to come soon, though! 🤤 

Do you have a favorite version of a traditional Christmas song?

Yes, I do, when a singer, born in Malaysia, called Kamahl, used to sing The Holy City. This isn't strictly a Christmas Carol, but for some reason, it always figures in Sydney's own traditional Christmas Carol repertoire. We watched on TV, André Rieu stage one such Sydney Christmas show, in Sydney's main Town Hall, with dancing, audience participation, and a lovely variety of all our favourite music, including some Australian favourites like The Seekers' I am Australian, almost our second national anthem, though they didn't sing all the verses. However, they didn't play any Australian Christmas Carols like 6 White Boomers, The three drovers, or Silver stars are in the sky.  On the other hand, we did get to hear We Three Kings of Orient are and Once in Royal David's City. The New South Wales Police Band turned up, all wearing kilts and playing bagpipes. And yes, besides some other Christmas carols, it, too, included The Holy City.  I've linked the lyrics if anyone doesn't remember them.

Favorite movies?

We saw "new" movies such as Home Alone number 4, all the more poignant when it involves Kevin being stranded with his father and the father's new fiancée. And another edition of Polar Express since Christmas 2010. I'd have loved to have seen War of the Rohirrim, but couldn't get to it, at a rather late 9.30 pm screening. 

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas this year, but now it is over, and it will soon be New Year's Eve. I forgot the sour cream and chives for the baked potatoes, which is my own fault. Many thanks to our three daughters who arranged just about everything for us. 

Overall Christmas was pretty good here. We didn't get any snow, but the weather was pleasant. There was some health drama with one of the grandparents that was unexpected on Christmas Eve that made for some tense moments especially since it was all long distance for us and waiting for updates was hard, but thankfully all is well for now.

We had brisket (cooked in a ton of coffee ), cheesy potatoes, cranberry jello salad, leafy salad, and fresh bread. Dessert was a chocolate trifle that one of my sisters and I made together, she made buttermilk brownies and I made chocolate sauce and the whipped cream/cream cheese layer. I think we made a good team and the dessert was enjoyed by all.

We did a 1000 piece puzzle over Christmas Eve/Day, and it was hard. It was a lovely wintery scene, but might not be doing it  again. Since then we have been working our way through our collection of Christmas/winter puzzles. 

From the Christmas movie collection, this Christmas season we watched We're No Angels, Fitzwilly, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, Christmas In Connecticut, A Christmas Carol (1938), The Nativity Story, and I feel like I am missing one more title. I always enjoy We're No Angels and Fitwilly, this year I also really enjoyed watching White Christmas.

I got to make nearly all of the cookies on my baking list for the Christmas season. I think my favorite might have been the vanilla wafers this year, they're such fun to make and I love how crunchy they are when properly baked. They have to baked until very golden or else they will be chewy. I made two different flavors, but the coffee flavored ones didn't really taste like coffee once the wafers were baked, so basically just had vanilla and plain. They did pair well with both hot cocoa and coffee.

We've still got all the Christmas decorations up and actually since Christmas Day the tree has gotten a few more ornaments. With today being Epiphany, tomorrow we will probably changed most of the decor to gold/silver/blue for a wintery look and leave all of the lights up through the end of the month. 

Thanks for starting this topic, @SnowAngel! 🙂

I did not have time to post in this topic before our Christmas, but it has been interesting reading everyone's responses. I could go on and on about the Christmas music I treasure, but for now, we had a couple of wonderful Christmas carol sings, reveling in the wonderful old carols, then introducing some newer carols, which are very rich and meaningful, as well.

My favourite Christmas music to listen to is "The Messiah", "The Nutcracker", and Michael W. Smith's three Christmas albums. These are of absolute excellence in every way. I was gifted with some of the sheet music (which I had been lacking and very much wanting) at Christmas, and which I practice almost daily, along with much else.

I grew up going to annual performances of "The Messiah" and "The Nutcracker" ballet, so they are in my very blood. I even had the privilege of singing in a Messiah chorale that toured around southern Ontario. At times I could hardly sing my alto part because of the joy and thrill of participation in this glorious oratorio.

As for movies, we did not watch a single one over the holidays. Too much else to enjoy and do. But I did take in my annual re-read of Dickens' marvelous A Christmas Carol, which I treasure more and more with each passing year. I also participated in a book study of this beloved novella with The Strong Women Podcast (Colson Center for Christian Worldview). Insightful and engaging interviews and reads.

We don't rush to take any Christmas decorations or lights down. We have a fair bit of company over across the span of the holidays (two weeks here), mostly family, among others, as well. So I am baking items that can be frozen weeks before. We love to leave all the Christmas stuff up until about a week following New Year's Day.

Yesterday I removed the decorations from the live Frasier Fir Christmas tree, but left the many coloured mini lights and tinsel up. No plans to take the tree down in the next week or so, as it is still drinking (we cut it down December 1), and the needles still feel quite soft, not yet prickly.

I replaced the many coloured lights we had outside on the front porch railing and bushes with our lovely rest-of-the-year warm vintage Canvas lights (on the long railing only). The back porch coloured lights I need to wait for a bit to replace with the vintage lights, as there is a fair bit of snow on the back porch, making navigating my way there a bit tricky.  

We have a growing evergreen tree (named 'Charlie' after Charlie Brown's Christmas tree), which is now nearly 12' tall, but for years it was just a wee, little guy—even a bit straggly. Yet in the past few years, something changed and it began flourishing, having grown a lot. We fill it with pretty green lights in November, which stay up until March, when daylight savings time kicks in. It brings a pretty glow over the snow during those months, and we have had neighbours and passersby comment on how lovely it looks.

SnowAngel wrote: tomorrow we will probably changed most of the decor to gold/silver/blue for a wintery look and leave all of the lights up through the end of the month. 

Yes! We love that mysteriously beautiful wintry blue and silver that snow brings. ♥ Being a bit of a collector of decorative snowmen, I leave them up all year long, so when hot summer hits, I can look at them and fondly remember colder weather.  

I have packed away any leftover baking for our next family gathering (February), but I must say that we ate very well over the holidays. So much delicious, homemade food. But probably too much sugar involved, at times.