A long time between posts, I know. That's because after the events in the month of November, I wanted to make my first post back a memorial post. Since it's taking longer than I expected to pull that together, we'll try a lighter post for now.
I love Christmas music. Beginning the day after Thanksgiving through the day after Christmas, it's the only kind of music I want to listen to. We have a local radio station that accomodates my Christmas music extravaganza, they only play Christmas music during that time. Normally they are an easy-listening station. Also I have a great collection of Christmas songs on my iPod. And John's XM radio has a few exclusively holiday stations this time of year. So I am totally covered.
This year my friend Amy invited me to go see the American Idol Stars in Concert for the Holidays with her; the tour kicked off in our town and she is a season passholder at that venue. 4 previous Idols (Michael Sarver from Season 8, Alexis Grace from Season 8, David Hernandez from Season 7, and Gina Glocksen from Season 6) performed together and solo in a 2 hour concert with a brief intermission at our historic Polk Theatre downtown as a part of their 2009-2010 Performing Art Series. It was a fun show - the performers started a round version of The 12 Days of Christmas and then ended up laughing so hard that they missed a few lines, but we were all laughing too so it was all good. David Hernandez was so funny with all of his theatrics on stage. Next year I've already told John that we need to go see the
Tran-Siberian Orchestra Christmas performance in concert - I have their CD but I'd love to see the show live.
This post wouldn't be complete without some more specifics on what I'm listening to. My favorite Christmas carols are the religious carols and I prefer more traditional versions of them. Here are a few of my favorites, straight from my iTunes playlist, and my favorite version of each:
- Angels We Have Heard on High by the San Francisco Choir
- Baby Jesus is Born by Garth Brooks
- Carol of the Bells by Emmy Rossum
- The Chipmunk Song by Alvin and the Chipmunks
- Do You Hear What I Hear by Third Day from the WoW Christmas Disc 1
- Emmanuel by Michael W Smith
- The First Noel by Bing Crosby
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Garth Brooks
- Go Tell It On The Mountain by Garth Brooks
- Hark the Herald Angels Sing by the San Francisco Choir
- A Holly Jolly Christmas by Burl Ives
- It Came Upon a Midnight Clear by Caedmon's Call from the WoW Christmas Disc 2
- Joy to the World by Bing Crosby
- O Come All Ye Faithful by Jeremy Camp
- O Little Town of Bethlehem by Bing Crosby
- Oh Holy Night by Kelly Clarkson
- Silent Night by Sixpence None the Richer from the City On A Hill Christmas CD
- A Strange Way to Save the World by 4HIM from the WoW Christmas Disc 1
- Up on the Housetop
- We Three Kings by John Michael Talbot
- What Child is This by MercyMe from the WoW Christmas Disc 2
My goal, eventually, is to have at least one version of every Christmas song that I like on my iPod. Last night I was searching for the song "Angels From the Realm of Glory" in iTunes, which was among the missing from my collection, and I was disturbed to find many artists had recorded the song "Angels We Have Heard on High" but named it "Angels From the Realm of Glory" instead. I finally settled on a version of the song by Stephen Curtis Chapman, it was my favorite out of the few songs that were actually titled correctly.
My helpful tip of the day: I just learned from a friend that Amazon is giving away a Christmas song MP3 download every day from Dec 1 - Dec 25. Click the link to check it out.
Now it's your turn - go forth and spread the Christmas cheer!
