My Christmas Listenin' List

I love this time of year. The changing colors in the trees with beautiful combinations of greens, reds, oranges and yellows. I love the change from hot to cold. Here in California, we unfortunately don't get much of a Autumn, but I definitely love what comes with the cold weather like blankets and scarves. I love time with my family and friends over dinner, board games or coffee. I enjoy setting up decorations around the house. But every Christmas season, one of the things I look forward to the most is wonderfully fun Christmas music. I'm not sure what it is, but I just love it.

With that said, here are my top 5 Christmas albums:

Number 5: If On A Winter's Night- Sting
This album isn't necessarily a "Christmas" album, but I'm classifying it as one anyway. The reason I say this is because Sting's lyrics are mostly about the season, Winter and not Christmas. The cd has a large variety of songs that you've never heard of; it's all new stuff. It's refreshing to hear something different.
Must Listens: Soul Cake (it's super catchy, but not in a bad way)

Number 4: Christmas Eve and Other Stories - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
First of all, I love orchestrated music. It's absolutely beautiful.  Second, I love rock. Put them together and you get this wonderful music. And for the most part with Trans-Siberian's cds, they tend to tell a story. I picked this song mainly because one of my favorite Christmas songs ever is on it. The song Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 is a wonderful, timeless song. The music video for it adds so much more to the song which makes me love this song even more.
Must Listens: Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24

Number 3: Let it Snow - Michael Buble
In my completely biased opinion, this album is terrific. Michael Buble really has a way of capturing the classic songs and turning them modern without ruining them. He continues to do this with Christmas music. It's certainly enjoyable, then again, he can do no wrong.
Must Listens: Home for Christmas

Number 2: Have Yourself a Very KT Christmas - KT Tunstall
This is definitely the most fun Christmas cd I own. The only part I don't like about it is that it's just so short. She adds rock to some classics and in some songs she even uses a xylophone and kazoo. Her rendition of the Hawaiian Christmas tune, Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas in Hawaii) is phenomenal. This album is definitely unconventional.
Must Listens: Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas in Hawaii) and Fairytale of New York

Number 1: Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi
Every since I was a kid, I've been a Charlie Brown fan. And I absolutely love Vince Guaraldi. While listening to the radio, it's always so easy to pick out his music from the others. It's so wonderful! This album is just filled with so many classics.
Must Listens: Linus & Lucy

Now here's your job: Go out and buy all these albums then thank me for introducing you to some great stuff. Enjoy these tunes for the next few weeks! Merry Christmas!

P.S. I totally wrote this blog backwards with exception to the introduction.