I love Christmas, so every week I'll be adding a new blog post about how I celebrate the season.

I'll admit, I usually bust the Christmas music before December 1. I try hard to keep away, I really do, but sometimes I can't help it. Now that it's December, the Christmas Lounge channel from SomaFM is on most of the time in my house or office (If you aren't listening to Soma, you should rectify that ASAP).

So here are some of my favourite Christmas Carols, in no particular order:

Sleigh Ride / Santa Claus' Party - Ferrante & Teicher & Les Baxter



OK, this one was in particular order. I LOVE SLEIGH RIDE. It is by far my favourite Christmas song. I bounce up and down like a three year old when ever I hear it playing (I never said I didn't have problems).
If I only had one Christmas song to listen to, it would be this one. This version is my favourite, hands down, but nearly any rendition (Big Crosby, Andrews Sisters, The Ronnettes, Squirrell Nut Zippers) will do.

Baby It's Cold Outside - Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel



Buddy the Elf, what's your favourite colour?
Elf is also one of my favourite Christmas movies (it stems from my sisters and I being Will Ferrell fans and watching this movie after getting sugar highs from icing cookies) and I think the entire soundtrack is ah-maaaaazing (in fact, the version of Sleigh Ride above is from Elf too). If you haven't seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack, please do. There's lots of great Christmas jazz standards on there (and Louis Prima's Pennies From Heaven, even though it's not a Christmas song).

Sleigh Bells and Wine - Jason Gleason



Even though this song is a little sad, I love it. It's so smooth and relaxing. I listened to the Santa Cause albums in college, but I usually skipped over this one because I wasn't into jazz two years ago (look at what you've done to me, G!) but it's probably one of my favorutie songs on the albums now. Except for.....

All I Want For Christmas is You - Dave Miello 



You know, I tried to listen to the Mariah Carey version. I really did. But then I threw up in my mouth, and that's not healthy.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love



Another Christmas album that I love is A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector and I could pick out a few more songs from there, but this list is starting to get pretty long. I just love Love's emotion in this song (also, it makes me giggle because I think about the SNL digital short she was in, but that's for another day. In fact, SNL Christmas could be its own blog post, I think).

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So that's my list! I wanted to keep it fairly concise, but it could have been about 10 times as long. I have some great Christmas music (or so I think) so if anyone wants to raid my collection, give me a shout!

xo LC