Christmastime is Here!

Christmas is coming, and due to a combination of sleep-deprivation, lack of snow, and the Florida holiday spiders, it just doesn't feel like the holiday season yet. So I'm loading a bunch of my favorite Christmas music onto my laptop and iPod and trying to saturate myself into the spirit of things.

Here's a list of my favorite Christmas carols, just for kicks:

* "Coventry Carol," Loreena McKennitt--McKennitt's style is a blend of traditional Celtic music, modern "New Age" instrumentation, and bits of world musical styles from Russian to Arabic. This carol, off her too-short holiday album, A Winter Garden, is just lovely.

* "O, Holy Night," Cartman and friends--Just to avoid being too stuffy, this rendition has South Park's Cartman singing the popular carol to his classmates, and being electrocuted by his cattle-prod-wielding teacher whenever he forgets the words. OK, it's juvenile, but it always cracks me up.

* "Riu Chiu," The Monkees--What's a Christmas carol list without the Monkees? I've always loved their version of this 16th century Spanish carol.

* "Christmastime is Here," Vince Guaraldi Trio--From the geniuses who brought you the Linus & Lucy theme, this classic is still as fun today as it was when I first heard it on "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

* "Welcome Christmas (Fahoo Foraze)," The MGM Studio Orchestra with Boris Karloff--You'd have to be a Grinch not to love this one.

* "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," Elmo N' Patsy--This song absolutely cracked my Grandma up when it first came out, and I think it still does every year. I always think of her and my Grandpa when I hear it, which is probably disturbing to some, but oh, well.

* "Oi'che Chi'un (Silent Night)," Enya--The Celtic version of Silent Night. Gorgeous. And probably spelled wrong.

* "Feliz Navidad," Jose Feliciano--Always reminds me of Christmas at home--my mom LOVES this song. I like it more and more the older I get. Which probably means I'm turning into my mother.

* And finally, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Band Aid--I'm REALLY embarrassed to admit to liking this song so much. It's pedestrian, politically incorrect, and factually incorrect as well (seeing as the freaking NILE flows through Ethiopia, thereby making the lyric "no rain nor river flows" wrong). Also, seeing as Christianity is one of the two main religions of the country, of course they knew it was Christmas. A more appropriate title might have been "Do They Give a Rat's Ass That It's Christmas, Because There's a FAMINE Going On?" And the whole manner of referring to the people of Ethiopia as "them" and "the other one" always felt weirdly condescending to me.

But somehow, some way, I manage to ignore all of this whenever that blasted song comes on the radio, and I start belting out "FEEEEEEEED THE WOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRLD!!" along with Duran Duran, Boy George, George Michael, Phil Collins, et al. There it is--I love this song. I. Love. This. Horrible. Song. It puts me in a Christmas-y mood every year.

I'm so ashamed.

* And, of course, there are the old standbys--Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Nat King Coles "The Christmas Song," Jimmy Durante's "Frosty the Snowman," etc. Love those. And even though I'm not Jewish, I do love Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song.