Spirit of the Season
Each year, I have a non-chalant approach to the holidays. I enjoy Christmas, from a distance. Heading to the stores for shopping extravaganzas is never my style and I have been known to do all my shopping in a period of two hours. This includes EVERYONE on the list. I get too many gifts every year, mainly because of my run in, grab, and get out philosophy. If it looks like something someone will like, I buy it.
This year, I want to enjoy the holiday season. I want to take the time to discover Christmas for what it is. I'm hoping to spend a night or two driving around a looking at Christmas lights at people's homes. I want to spend time with my friends and family during the holidays and be thankful for them. I'd also like to actually take my Christmas tree out of the box this year and set it up. I completely forgot last year.
My efforts this year are starting now as I'm trying to re-create a mix of music my godfather made for me when I was quite little. I've mentioned this a few times on here. It is the reason for my purchase of a CD by the Royal Guardsmen and a recent Bruce Springsteen single I received in the mail.
iTunes has helped me a bit with this project. I have found all the holiday/winter songs in my music collection and made a playlist. I have 74 songs in here. I even purchased a few through iTunes music store. Narrowing these down to one perfect CD is my goal. I think I only need to cut out 2 hours of music.
Some of the songs are duplicates. There are about five BNL songs that I have different versions of the same song. Some songs are performed by different artists and I am trying to decide which version I like the most. And other songs are just holiday songs that have no meaning for me and I think I won't include them.
I think I've narrowed down the field a bit, but I'm still stumped with what to keep and what to leave off the album. One thing I have determined about holiday music is that I have absolute favorites, absolute "no-way"s, and that sometimes I like artists only during the holidays. (You will not find the Chipmunk song or Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer on my list. But you can actually find Mariah Carey in this list. That's sick.)
So I'm stumped at this point. And I have absolutely no idea why I decided to write about this on here other than the fact it is my day off and the middle of the night and there's not much else to do.
My list so far (which is too long for a CD and in no order):
A New York Christmas - Rob Thomas
Carol of the Bells - Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Do You Hear What I Hear - Perry Como & the Ray Charles Singers
Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings - BNL & Sarah McLachlan
Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms & the Anita Kerr Singers
Mad Russian's Christmas - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town [Live] - Bruce Springsteen
Snoopy's Christmas - The Royal Guardsmen
White Christmas - Bing Crosby
Happy Christmas (The War is Over) - John Lennon
Christmas in America - Melissa Etheridge
Silver Bells - The Ray Conniff Singers
The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) - Nat King Cole
Sleigh Ride - Andy Williams
All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
Do They Know it's Christmas? - BNL
Elf's Lament - BNL & Michael Buble
Happy Christmas-Give Peace a Chance - Melissa Etheridge
Jingle Bells - BNL
Silent Night - Jewel
O Holy Night - Jewel
O Holy Night - John Williams
Carol of the Bells - John Williams
Good King Wenceslas - Crash Test Dummies
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