feel festive

Today I read an article that talked about "tired" Christmas Music. You know, the songs that make you cringe when you hear them yet another time. I actually like Christmas music, but there are some songs that I could happily forget ever existed. None of those songs were on this author's list. Instead his article felt more like he had a list of songs he wanted to plug, and he was just trying to do it in what didn't seem so much like a plug. For every song on his list, he "suggested" a different one to play instead.

Me, I think bad music is just... bad music. There is no excuse to drag out Alvin and the Chipmunks just because the Album had "Christmas" in the title. Instead, drag out John Denver, and the Muppets! Ok, I'm being ironic, at least a bit. I know, JD et al is not critical masterpiece either, but it makes me cheery to listen to it. Yes, it does.

I like a lot of the old Christmas music as well (Ok, I'm not classifying the above as old, even though many people would). My folks had Fred Waring and the Pensylvanians. It was one of our Christmas staples, and when I found a cassette of one of the albums once, I bought it without hesitation. I wish I could find it on disk, but I'll probably have to search online and download it someday. They could sing AND they didn't do the same tired arrangements as everyone else.

One of my other favorites is the Chieftains Christmas Album, The Bells of Dublin. Some traditional happy stuff, and then there's "The St Steven's Day Murders" to spice things up a bit. So anyway, now that the Christmas countdown is on, we may as well drag out the holiday favorites one more time and start listening. Maybe it will make me feel like setting the tree up...