Oohh...I love, love, love Christmas music! As this beautiful and magical time of the year approaches, I simply cannot wait to load up my ipod with all my favorite Christmas carols & songs. Music has always been such a special thing in my life and inspires me beyond anything. I think Christmas music is particularly moving & powerful as well as it is festive and joyful!

For me, Thanksgiving symbolizes the official start to the Christmas season and so I always add all my holiday playlists to my ipod on that day. I listen to some songs until the Christmas season really strikes, then I listen to them practically all the time. I find it special though to save my most favorite and spiritual pieces for the most special of occasions or moments. Hearing them again is so, so magical and each note & lyric is even more special as you feel the depth of what this season is truly about.

I have so many favorites that it is nearly impossible to list a few. When it comes to those classical pieces that truly resemble the core and meaning of Christmas, I love O Holy Night, Silent Night, Away in a Manger, Ave Maria, Don Oiche Ud I Mbeithil, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, Greensleeves, & The Little Drummer Boy. There are many more, but those are just some that I adore.

And of course there are the cheerful carols that we hear all the time throughout the season. Of those, my favorite is Carol of the Bells! LOVE IT! Amongst the many, others include Sleigh Ride, White Christmas, Joy to the World, Silver Bells, I'll be Home for Christmas, Pat-a-Pan, Christmas Pipes, Deck the Halls, Believe, It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas... Literally the list goes on forever, to practically every carol there is!

Favorite artists range from Celtic Woman, Loreena McKennit, & Josh Groban all the way to Mariah Carey, Emmy Rossum, & Michael Buble!

In school, our choir used to sing some amazing arrangements and pieces as well, so I always remember that moment right before we began the piece, and it was silent as candles flickered in the windows and Christmas trees adorned the chapel hall. I still get chills from recalling that moment.

Honestly, I do not think there is anything more beautiful than snuggling up with a mug of hot chocolate by the window watching the snow fall silently outside while the music plays quietly in the background surrounding you with the blessings this season brings!

I definitely love Christmas music. I do listen to a lot of it year round -- especially if it helps me write a holiday-themed book.
When I was little my parents usually played Amy Grant and Point of Grace, so that's really what reminds me of Christmas the most.
My favorites would mostly be those on the WOW Christmas albums. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Bethany Dillon, Christmastime is here by Sixpence None the Richer, What Child is This by ZoeGirl, O Come O Come Emmanuel by Third Day and another by Nicole C. Mullen, and Do You Hear What I Hear by Third Day, etc.

~Riella

I usually have rule that I can't listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, but I broke the rule this year when I wrote a review of Seabird's new Christmas album (actually one of the more intriguing Christmas albums ever put out since they took the lyrics and ditched the classic melodies and wrote their own).

So I've been enjoying Christmas music early!
"O Holy Night" is hands down, without a doubt, no questions asked my favorite carol ever. It is also one of my favorite songs ever. The lyrics are amazing, such a beautiful picture of both Christ's birth and legacy, and the melody with it's soaring celebration is just incredible.

I'm looking forward to picking out some of my favorite alternative/indie renditions of the classics for my annual Alternative Christmas Playlist. There are some excellent ones by Brightwood, Eisley, a gorgeous minor rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful" by Starfield, and other artists.

I also grew up singing Christmas carols with my women's choir in High School and I miss that. We sang some of the most obscure carols and the ugliest arrangements, but we had a lot of fun!

I don't listen to Christmas music much before Thanksgiving. I like it, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. But after Thanksgiving I want to listen to Christmas music all the time.

Some of my favorites include:
The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
O Holy Night
Silent Night
Welcome to Our World by I-forget-who
Carol of the Bells Love hearing this one a cappella.
We Three Kings

There are lots more, but I should probably stop there.

A the music,
it has always been a tradition for my family to begin listening to Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving, and not a day sooner. Last year however I picked it up early, Nov 1

This year I picked it up as well, but still not too hard yet. The "worst" will come after Thanksgiving. I love the christians christmas songs as much as the secular ones.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
All I want for Christmas
Oh Holy Night
Carol of the Bells
Silent Night
Hark The Harold Angel Sing
Christmastime is Here (Charlie Brown)
and MANY more of the classics/traditional songs.

I really enjoy some of the newer stuff as well, at least "new" to me.

Mary Did You Know? (been a few years)
Winter Snow (released last year)
Emmanuel (Michael W Smith)
The Christmas Waltz (MWS)

As far as listening to Christmas music after the holidays... I don't. It just doesn't feel right anymore for me. I put them away until next season. Dec 25 is my last day for them.

One thing that really irked me last year is that our local oldie's station (which converts over the a Christmas station on Dec. 1st) played very few of the religious songs last year. The only ones they would play were various renditions of O Holy Night, which is a great song. . . but after a while I wanted to hear something else. As a result, they only played the same songs over and over again, which really disappointed me. I'm not expecting a majour change from this year

So. . . to tide me over, I joined Pandora radio last year, and found that to be a lovely substitute. It really broadened my horizons, allowing me to experience Christmas music that I'd never heard before. One of the songs that I first heard there, has now become one of my favourites (In the Bleak Midwinter)

Recently, with college life eating away at me, and as I struggle with the emotional toll associated with being away from home, I've started listening to Christmas music again (snuggled up in my dormitory with a cup of homemade hot chocolate). The memories associated with those songs have almost made me feel like I was at home! My current kick has been listening to the Celtic Women's versions of the carols. Their version of Carol of the Bells is just chilling, and they have a version of Silent Night that is sung in Gaelic (which automatically makes it cooler, duh! ). You can check out a lot of their videos by youtubing them. I've been listening to their versions of:

Silent Night
Carol of the Bells
In the Bleak Midwinter/The First Noel
O Holy Night
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

*is putting up one of his Christmas trees this weekend when I go home!

As I hinted at in the opening post, this time of year brings some of my favorite music. And so many Christmas songs have references to a quiet, star-filled night sky.

Classic favorites include

Silent Night (a cappella - or even better, a cappella in the original German)
O Holy Night
O Little Town of Bethlehem
O Come All Ye Faithful
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Joy to the World
Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
Greensleeves
In the Bleak Midwinter
Carol of the Bells
Ding Dong, Merrily on High

No doubt there are others

Of the 'newer classics' I really like "Mary, Did You Know?" I was first introduced to this song on Kathy Mattea's "Good News" Christmas collection. This 2000 release has some other more-modern songs I've really come to like (like the medieval-flavored "Brightest And Best," and "Christ Child's Lullaby"), and it's often the first Christmas CD of the season for me.

I also really like Celtic Woman's A Christmas Celebration, which has excellent performances of many of my favorites listed above. Incidentally, their version of "The Little Drummer Boy" quickly became my favorite for that song, and I'd never heard "Christmas Pipes" before, and I like that song as well.

A local group called Greenwood Tree offers an instrumental collection called An Olde English Christmas; it features instruments like hammered dulcimer, bowed psaltery, and pipes that give many of the old classics a very medieval feel. It's another CD I frequently turn to during December.

Traditionally, I begin listening to Christmas music on the road to my parents' house (a 2-hour trip) for Thanksgiving, but I'm not above listening to it early (just writing this has been a temptation! ) or even in the summer should the fancy strike.

*gives in and pops A Christmas Celebration into the DVD player*

wow! cool!
here are some of my favorites:

Joy To The World
Silent Night
Jingle Bells
The First Noel
Hark, The Herald Angels Sing

"O come o come Emmanuel" is probably my favorite Christmas song. I even have it on my iPod (sung by Enya- she has a gorgeous voice!))

Christmas music is probably one of my most favorite parts of the Christmas season. This year i actually started listening to one song in October, because i wanted to look up the lyrics to it; the song is Our God is With Us by Steven Curtis Chapman. It's become one of my most favorites.

Favorite Christmas songs (it's a long list):
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
O Come All Ye Faithful
Joy to the World
Angels We Have Heard on High
Sing We Now of Christmas
Silent Night
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
We Three Kings
I Wonder as I Wander
In the Bleak Midwinter
The Holly and the Ivy
Our God is With Us
We Are the Reason
Carol of the Bells
Fum, Fum, Fum
Of the Father's Love Begotten
What Child is This
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Mary, Did You Know?
Come Run, Ye Shepherds
While Shepherds Lately Knelt

There are probably more i'll think of later.

I like Mannheim Steamroller's versions of many Christmas carols.

I confess that I have the same problem DiGs described with our local oldies station. I start getting sick of their playlist about two days in. There's only so many times one can listen to Santa Baby... and it's not four times a day. Also, they don't play All I Want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus nearly often enough. Fortunately, the local classical station has a WONDERFUL selection even if they don't play AIWFCIAH at all... but they do play a delightful piece about a donkey who helps a monk write a new carol.

*dittos Dot's, gazer's, and Arwenel's lists of favourite carols*

Also, they don't play All I Want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus nearly often enough.

I had never heard this song. Last year I somehow popped into this song on the internet. Don't remember where or how, but I am happy I did. I got addicted to it. I could listen to it ten times in a row or more, because I found it to be short and catchy. Loved it. I haven't yet heard it this year though.

Arwenel's list of carols reminds me of a few favorites that I omitted earlier.

Like Mel, I like listening to Mannheim Steamroller. And speaking of instrumental holiday music, no discussion would be complete without this now-famous video of a 2005 Ohio light display choreographed to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Wizards in Winter

The comments about I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas lead into another sort of genre for Christmas songs: the silly songs (or, as Doctor Demento used to call them, novelty songs). I remember listening to his Christmas radio programs back in the day; he often said there were so many novelty versions of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that he could fill a 2-hour broadcast with them. My favorite parody of this song is legendary TV-and-movie-voice actor Frank Welker's version "A Totally Ridiculous 12 Days of Christmas" (4.84 MB version available for free download here). He does all the special effects and celebrity voices in the song. And this live performance from Straight No Chaser is fun as well - it starts out seriously enough but quickly morphs into mayhem featuring other Christmas carols and Toto's 1980s song "Africa."

"O come o come Emmanuel" is probably my favorite Christmas song. I even have it on my iPod (sung by Enya- she has a gorgeous voice!))

ooh, I didn't know she sang that one! can you post a link?