and MUSIC!

Thanks so much for your lovely food comments yesterday. Let's all take a moment to think about holiday food.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now let's turn to our next topic specific to the holiday season*: Holiday Music.

As soon as we hit the day after Thanksgiving, I allow myself to let the Christmas music in. We have a pile of old classics CDs at home: Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Torme. (Yes, I meant OLD classics!) Plus the Charlie Brown Christmas CD, which I understand many people hate. *shrug* For me, it's soothing. At work I also crank up Pandora, to "Christmas Rock" or "Green Christmas" by the Barenaked Ladies.

But none of that is what I crave, musically. All of it is nice background music, I sing along, and it's all good. But the music that feeds my soul during the short, dark days, the music that makes me overlook the bustle of shopping and remember what it all is FOR?

The Cambridge Singers. (alternate link here)

If you haven't heard of them, The Cambridge Singers are a sublime British-based choir, with almost all the songs arranged by John Rutter. They sing medieval Christmas carols, hymns, and new (gorgeous) works created by John. We own many many of their CDs, and they're all loaded into ITunes.

For Christmas specifically, my favorites are Christmas Star, Christmas Night, and Christmas Day. Here, let me see if I can post a snippet.

This is in video form, but it's really just the music.



So, that's my favorite music. Your turn: what do you like to listen to at the holidays?


*You'll note I'm not talking about further publishing meltdowns, or panic because of same, or how books are going to go away. I think Janet Reid addressed that quite nicely yesterday.