We love holiday music, to include everything from Handel's Messiah to Bing's White Christmas.  It can be tough, though, to navigate the incredible range of holiday albums on the market.  There are the tried and true recordings - Elvis singing White Christmas, Sinatra performing the Christmas Waltz - but there also are thousands of terrible, second and third-rate recordings of the same great songs.  There also are endless numbers of compilation albums, hastily bought while checking out from a retail store, that frequently feature second-rate recordings by first-rate artists (wait, why is Sinatra singing Silent Night with Cindi Lauper? And is this a rhumba?).  And then there are the flat-out, awful recordings, typically made by artists who have no business recording anything remotely resembling a Christmas song.

Taking all of this into account, we have added to the site this year a new page where we plan, on an annual basis, to highlight a really great holiday album.  The idea is to feature recordings that include great arrangements, great performances, new or interesting songs, or all of the above.  We think the albums we list here would probably appeal to most folks visiting our site, but just in case, we have devised the following, one-part test:

Question: Is your favorite holiday song Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime?

Test Results: If you answered "yes" to the question above, the recommendations below are probably not for you.  If you answered "no," enjoy the music! 

Christmas in A Minor Key | The Milk Carton Kids (Recommendation 2024)

For several years now, we have recognized that we do not have a bona fide folk album in our lineup of recommended holiday albums. This year, we determined to remedy that deficiency. There are, of course, many to choose from, including the classic Merry Christmas! from The New Christy Minstrels (1963) and A Holiday Celebration from Peter, Paul and Mary (1992). A’Soalin’, the second song on the latter album, is a personal favorite and definitely worth a listen (or two or three). Ultimately, we decided to recommend a brand new gem from The Milk Carton Kids. Among the folk groups on the scene right now, The Milk Carton Kids are among the very best. A two man group, their acoustic guitar work and superb harmonies might remind you of Simon & Garfunkel in their heydey as a duo. Also notable is their penchant for the melancholy, with much of their original work exploring themes of loss and reminiscence. It is no surprise, then, that the first holiday album from the Kids, released this November, is titled Christmas in A Minor Key. The duo covers Christmas classics, but the songs selected are decidedly consistent with their musical DNA, including, for example, the heartbreaking I’ll Be Home for Christmas and the woeful Coventry Carol. Their rendition of Auld Lang Syne is simply gorgeous, and more than any arrangement we’ve ever heard, seems to evoke the question and answer at the heart of the song. If last year’s recommendation is the album you listen to while sitting by a roaring fire with a bourbon in your hand, Christmas in A Minor Key is the album you play while driving down the highway on a quiet and gray Christmas afternoon, leafless trees and snowy fields passing by, on the way to somewhere warm.

An Oscar Peterson Christmas | Oscar Peterson (Recommendation 2023)

Sometimes when trying to find a recommendation for this site, we’ll make a list of our favorite artists and hit the web to see if they’ve ever recorded a holiday album. Oscar Peterson, of course, is one of the all-time jazz piano greats. Aaron fell in love with him the first time he heard Night Train, which he thinks is one of the best albums ever recorded. We were delighted, then, to discover the fabulous An Oscar Peterson Christmas. For those who do not know Peterson’s work, it is complex and virtuosic, but also wonderfully bluesy, melodic, and accessible. His improvisations are masterful without straying into the esoteric. His Christmas album is no exception. Imagine it’s Christmas Eve, all the kids are in bed, and you’re sitting by a roaring fire with a bourbon in your hand, watching the snow quietly fall outside. This album is the soundtrack to that moment. If you have any doubts, just listen to his version of I’ll Be Home for Christmas, which you can catch for free on YouTube. It just doesn't get any better than this. Cheers!

Django Bells | The Gypsy Hombres (Recommendation 2022)

When Aaron was living in Nashville, there was a still-fairly-new jazz combo in town that played under the name “The Gypsy Hombres.” Formed and led by violinist Peter Hyrka, the group was a regular fixture at jazz clubs and brunches throughout the city, including F. Scott’s and Boscos in Hillsboro. An acoustic trio featuring violin, guitar, and string bass, The Gypsy Hombres were devotees of the “gypsy jazz” style made famous by the great Django Reinhardt, and always featured the kind of virtuosity required to do justice to the genre. Though less active these days, we understand that a current iteration of the group still periodically emerges in and around Nashville. Over the years, the group released three albums, including the delightful Cafe Strut, which we listen to regularly. But it is their Christmas album, Django Bells, that earns them a spot on our annual list. Smart, fun, and featuring extraordinary talent, the record is a great addition to any holiday album collection, and one of the few we’ve found that features a “hot club jazz” take on the music of the season.

Country Christmas | Loretta Lynn (Recommendation 2021)

As we were listening to various Christmas albums this year and contemplating which one to recommend, it dawned on us that we have never highlighted a country music album. As Ken Burns so wonderfully discussed in his spectacular documentary miniseries “Country Music,” at its heart, country music is about “unforgettable stories—stories of the hardships and joys shared by everyday people.” In our view, few country music artists bring this idea home like the Loretta Lynn. With that in mind, this year we are recommending her 1966 album Country Christmas. As you would expect, the record includes several obligatory renditions of Christmas standards. But tracks like “Country Christmas,” “To Heck With Ole Santa Clause,” and “Christmas Without Daddy” are vintage country originals, delivered with the kind of sincerity, charm, and at times, sadness, that are the trademark of the coal miner’s daughter. We were able to find the album on iTunes, and it appears that vinyl versions may also be available through Amazon or others.

Oy to the World | The Klezmonauts (Recommendation 2020)

Since we began this section of the website in 2015, one of our goals has been to ensure that our recommendations span a range of musical styles and genres. This year, we received some excellent suggestions from Brenna, our friend Jody, and others. But ultimately, we decided to highlight a musical niche that is simply too novel to be ignored: Christmas Klezmer. Klezmer is a style of folk music that draws upon the traditions of Ashkenazi Judaism and Eastern European folk traditions. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’ve almost certainly heard it, either from dancing the hora at a wedding or from Fiddler on the Roof, which incorporated klezmer scales and melodies throughout. A Prairie Home Companion used to feature klezmer every year during its annual joke show, which was held in New York City. In a wonderful, you’ve-just-got-to-love-it, musical mashup, a number of Klezmer bands have recorded albums of Christmas music over the years, taking traditional hymns and carols and bringing new life to them by infusing them with the style and energy that are the hallmark of the klezmer tradition. This year we are cheating a bit by recommending two albums, each of which is a tremendous ambassador for this genre. The albums are Oy to the World by the Klezmonauts, and Klezmer Nutcracker by Shirim.

Home for Christmas | The 442’s (Recommendation 2019)

This year we had the great fortune of being invited to the “The 442’s Holiday Spectacular,” a holiday concert hosted by and featuring the Saint Louis-based 442’s. As described on their Facebook page, the 442’s (named for the modern standard tuning of 442 Hz) are a “genre-defying acoustic instrumental group exploring the boundaries of jazz, classical, folk and rock music.” The group claims to be comprised of “the St. Louis region's finest jazz and classical musicians,” which is certainly defensible, and perhaps accurate. What makes this group stand out, at least for us, is their extraordinary and crowd-pleasing innovation. Not only are their arrangements fresh and technically superb, they also are fun and accessible. The 442’s Holiday Spectacular draws a standing ovation year after year, and it is well deserved. Lucky for us, they have taken the best of their holiday fare, and packed it into their album Home for Christmas, which is this year’s recommendation.

James Brown’s Funky Christmas | James Brown (Recommendation 2018)

We appreciate that some folks are quite content to pass each holiday season listening to the warm warbles of Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra, with a dash of Mannheim Steamroller thrown in “for the kids.” And to be clear, our playlist is packed with crooners. This having been said, we have a special place in our heart for Christmas music with a groove, and there is none better than this year’s recommended album, James Brown’s Funky Christmas. In 2012, when Rolling Stone magazine ranked the 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time, it placed this entry from the Godfather of Soul at number three on its list. And it is no mistake. The album is full of the kind of ultra-tight funk and soulful slow burn you would expect from anything in the James Brown catalog. But the real magic in this album is in the original work, which includes a socially conscious subtext that is missing from most traditional holiday fare. When James Brown sings songs like “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” and “Let’s Make Christmas Mean Something this Year,” he infuses a sincerity and perspective that reflects his own childhood in extreme poverty, and his understanding that for many, the Rockwellian Christmas represented in traditional holiday music remains far, far out of reach.

Rare Vintage Christmas Songs & Carols | Various Artists (Recommendation 2017)

As a general matter, we tend to steer clear of compilation albums, particularly when they feature a wide range of ancient recordings.  Our experience is that you often end up with poorly sung, poorly recorded renditions of holiday standards.  All this having been said, this year we were quite taken with Rare Vintage Christmas Songs & Carols, an album we discovered while strolling through the holiday fare on Amazon.  By no means is every track on this record a winner.  But the $10 price tag gets you 35 tracks, and some of them are real treasures, including Sleigh Ride by the Mexicali Brass, The Merry Christmas Polka by Dinah Shore, and Christmas Swing by Django Reinhardt, just to name a few.  There are also some wonderfully goofy tracks like O Holy Night by the Surfers, which serves as a commercial music history lesson, and The Fairy on the Christmas Tree by the Three Sisters, which we cannot listen to without thinking of this SNL sketch.  If you're looking to expand your Christmas Playlist, and to add some tracks you likely will not get anywhere else, we highly recommend giving this album a listen.     

Harry for the Holidays | Harry Connick, Jr. (Recommendation 2016)

This year we’re recommending the second Christmas album from Harry Connick. Jr., his 2003 gem titled Harry for the Holidays.  As with all of HCJ’s albums, the album features a big band production packed with extraordinary musicians.  But we love this album in particular because while the songs are familiar, the arrangements are inventive and, at times, challenging.  This is probably not an album you relax to while sipping hot chocolate by the fire (for something along these lines, see last year’s album).  Here, at times, the trumpets may squeal, the rhythms may be complex, and you may find it hard to sing along.  But again, that is precisely what makes this record such a great listen – and so much better than the tired arrangements you hear over and over on the radio and in department stores.  For Aaron, the two real standouts on this album are I Wander as I Wonder, and Silent Night.  Both are absolutely wonderful and moving takes on these beautiful songs. 

Under the Mistletoe | The Good Lovelies (Recommendation 2015)

This year's recommended album is 2009's Under the Mistletoe by the Good Lovelies.  Billed as a Canadian folk/country harmony trio, anyone with Nashville experience will recognize that these three women draw upon and synthesize jazz, blues, swing, and classic country influences in a manner that is common among the first-class musicians that inhabit Music City, but much less common on the broader, pop scene.  The harmonies are tight, and will remind you of the female trios that used to sing alongside USO bands in the big band era, while the instrumentation and production harkens the best of Nashville's small ensemble, western swing combos.  Evidencing the album's combination of styles and sounds, we note that this single record features solos from the mandolin, the steel guitar, and the vibraphone.  If Nora Jones, Erin Bode, and Diana Krall recorded a Christmas album together, this would be it (well, maybe).  At any rate, it's great, and well worth $13 on Amazon (or $10 on iTunes).