Charlie Brown Christmas rocks! I have all of the songs on MIDI so that they can play on our piano. I played the Linus song just last night as we were making our Christmas party list. Nothing puts you in the mood like that song. We also took the kids to see Trans Siberian Orchestra which was one of the most awesome concerts I had been to in a long time. The light and fire show was out of this world. They are worth seeing if they come to your area. I love their music the most.

Anything by Robert Shaw.

And I like to mix it up--a little harp, a few w/ bells.

i don't actually like pop music stars doing Christmas music. I like traditional stuff, mostly. Choirs, etc.

Or "vocalists" (in other words, OLD pop stars, LOL!)

Honeymoon Suite - I Believe in Father Christmas. LOOOVE that song and it's not on any album or CD. I can only hear it on the radio during Christmas holidays.

I admit I still watch The Grinch and chuckle. I even go see Santa Claus occasionally. lol

Honsetly the album that gets played when I go home for xmas the most is an East Coast Chistmas, which is a number of celtic artits playing fairly folky type music.

I also enjoy hearing that old Rafi record at least once at chistmas. Yes, Rafi was a kid's artist, but it still makes me feel nostalgic.

I have'n decorated my treee in the last 20+ years without Manheim Steamroller playing in the background! Whichever of my grown kids are around to help, one of them always says, 'go put on Manheim.' We also love Mitch Miller and the Gang, especially his 'Must Be Santa'. And our Christmas wouldn't be complete without Gene Autry's 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer'. 'Jingle Cats' also gets a couple of go-rounds just cause it's so cute, and our family loves cats.

My kids are all grown with kids of their own, and they've carried on *our* traditional Christmas in their own homes.

I recently added a CD by the Judd's, just cause I like them and country music.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Manheim Steamroller, Time-Life Treasure of Holiday Favorites (it has all the classics), Alabama Christmas, Wow Christmas...I have a ridiculously long list but those are my favorites.

We always watch The Grinch (the cartoon), Charlie Brown, Rudolph and Frosty. When my niece was little she called Rudolph "Rudo the ress nos". Favorite holiday movies are Christmas Vacation, Elf, The Polar Express and A Christmas Story. We all recite a variety of lines from any of these movies - lots from Christmas Vacation in particular. Although "son of a Nutcracker" is a great one if you really need to swear but there are little people around!

My DH and son put up with my sappiness during the holidays. I think secretly they like it but are too cool to show it. I know they like the cookies!

I like the David Bowie and Bing Crosby version of "Little Drummer Boy." BTW, there is a station here (Birmingham, Al) that has already started playing Christmas music 24/7! I didn't know there were that many listeners ready to do Christmas so soon.

Stan Boreson - "I yust go nuts at Christmas"

You have to live in the NW to love it.

The Bob Rivers "Twisted Christmas" CDs go on heavy rotation in my car the day after Thanksgiving. Keeps me from going insane at the constant Christmas music everyfrickinwhere I go. :-)

The "Celtic Sojourn" Christmas CDs are nice picks for those who love Celtic music. One of the things I love about them is that they almost totally bypass the usual carols in favor of obscure songs, and many songs are performed in Gaelic which allows the music to just wash over you (unless, of course, you grok Gaelic!). Ditto for the "Celtic Christmas" CDs from Windham Hill - the occasional song gets some squishy Windham Hill synthesizer glop grafted onto it, but overall they're excellent. I haven't listened to it but The Chieftains' "The Bells of Dublin" is supposed to be excellent.

However, Handel's "Messiah" must be played at least once, in its entirety, at some point between Thanksgiving and the Winter Solstice; when DH and I were dating, we both joined our university's amateur chorus, and performing the whole dang "Messiah" in a 300+ person chorus backed with the local symphony orchestra is still one of the high points of our life together.

Oh! I'm a rocker girl too and I know what you mean about Christmas music! Love Charlie Brown Christmas Jazz!

You simply must get Rat Pack Christmas! Oh it gives me such a feeling of bliss when I hear Sinatra or Dean Martin doing "Baby it's cold outside" or "Marshmellow World" and then there's Sammy Davis Jr with "Christmastime all over the world". Oh it's fun!

This year I've been giddy with delight with my new Elvis Christmas CD. It's the one with the Christian Carols. His Ole Little Town of Bethlehem is exquisite. I'm a bit young to remember Elvis but oh can he sing! Love it!

Hokey? Perhaps, but hey, isn't that Christmas!

Christmas just wouldn't be the same without Christmas Carols.

I am amazed that you are all calling them CHRISTMAS carols..Didn't any of you see how PC we are getting in this country? Lowes(the home improvement company) shipped out catalogs showing FAMILY trees instead of Christmas trees!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! and some mall in the middle of nowhere told their Santas to say Ha-ha-ha instead of Ho-ho-ho, so as not to offend women!!!! Last year i attended my youngest daughters "Holiday" concert, but not ONE christmas song was song, as the PC parents complained, so the children sang Kwanzaa songs,(no african-american children in the school) Draedel songs, and Frosty and Rudolph...I am very attuned to people's religious beliefs, and don't a problem with holidays such as Yom Kippur,Rosh Hashanna, or Martin luther King day, but for people to beotch about Xmas and take away all its meaning so as not to "offend" others is BS..thanks for letting me rant

qdognj - listening to the Jersey Guys the other day, there's a town in NJ that will not be decorating the public buildings with anything "Christmas" related. My guess is they will have snow flakes & sleighs. No more red & green lights, just plain white :(

what's your favorite holiday music?

I'm a product of 2 Hungarian Immigrants that were poor growing up. My "mother" was always pretty bitter about Christmas, they were too poor to afford Christmas gifts. I didn't notice it that much growing up but once I got older (teens) it was hard not to notice she was a Grinch. I swore that when I had my own kids I'd get my own traditions going & did.

When my son was little I bought A Very Special Christmas, we used to listen to it in the car & at the gas station. Before I moved here, I had a few of them on CD; they soon became a tradition to listen to as we set up the tree. I now own 4 of them, they're our favorite CD's.

I've always baked, love to make rolled cookies but the last few years with my back, I haven't been able to stand as much. When my dad was sick in 2005; I decided that since it was probably his last Christmas, it would be memorable; I baked up a storm. Christmas is our Christmas music with all sorts of Christmas cookies, we then have ham for dinner. When my kids were smaller they would go to their father's houses, but as they got older, chose to stay home Christmas morning, then they go later in the day.

It was very hard listening to "Blue Christmas" that last Christmas dad was alive. I could barely keep myself from crying, and hearing that song 2 years later will still make me cry. I've always loved Christmas, but not having my dad here is very hard, especially since I don't have family here in the states. He was my only family.

Not sure how much we will decorate this year, and I'm not sure how many cookies I can handle baking, but we'll do something. Next year will be the big one in our new house. I can't wait!

The PC stuff can definitely go too far. When I was teaching high school choir in Tucson, the band director, orchestra director and I decided for the holiday concert to do a combined Hallelujah Chorus to end the program (we did clear it with the administration ahead of time). We gave our non-Christian students the option to not perform if they (or their parents) felt uncomfortable. No one opted out of the performance and the audience loved it (it had never been done at that high school). The band director conducted so I sang with my kids on the risers. It was a great moment in my teaching life and I hope my students got as much out of it as I did.

I was at Target yesterday and saw a Crooners Christmas CD that had Bing, Dean, Sammie et al on it. I may pick it up next time I'm there. Nothing like Sammie Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae singing Baby it's Cold Outside!

I've also got a couple of Winter Solstice CDs from Windham Hill that are very nice. James Galway has a nice holiday CD as does the Canadian Brass (they have several). I'm not sure if either of these groups have a holiday CD out, but if you like Robert Shaw, you might like either The King's Singers or Chanticleer.

devorah - Stan Boreson - now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time! I grew up in Edmonds (just north of Seattle) so am familiar with him. Do you rememember a kids show by JP Patches?

It's fun decorating the new house. So many decisions of where things go!

DH and I love to listen to carols sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge. In fact, going to Cambridge to hear the choir sing at a service was one of DH's priorities on his first visit to England :-)

I also have Clay Aiken's Christmas CD, and love his version of the Little Drummer Boy duet with Bing Crosby that was done for TV four years ago.

Lowes(the home improvement company) shipped out catalogs showing FAMILY trees instead of Christmas trees!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

Well, it is the store's prerogative, and if we don't like it, show 'em by shopping elsewhere! :-)

Qdognj, I was working in retail about 7 years ago when things began to change. We were told to wish our customers 'Happy Holidays,' instead of the traditional 'Merry Christmas'. I would always forget and blurt out 'Merry Christmas'~guess I had some sort of mental block.

I've heard Christmas music in several stores, but that's changed too. Can't remember hearing 'Silent Night' once, or anything of a religous nature.

Why all of a sudden has the word Christmas become so offensive, along with religious Christmas music? Can't we all accept it for what it is, the day Christ was born, and those who *chose* to celebrate, do so? Are Christians trying to downplay holidys of other faiths? It just ain't right!

Fairygirl, of course I know of J.P. Patches. He started in Seattle when I was in the 5th grade. He is quite ill now and just made his last public appearance. There is a group putting together a fund to get a bronze statue of J.P. & Gertrude made. I think they want to put it in Ballard.

Do you also remember Captain Puget (Don McCune)? I have talked with his widow several times. She has wonderful stories. And let us not forget Brakeman Bill and Engineer Walt - although I was never into cartoons that much.

As far as I know, Stan Boreson is still well. He performed at the senior center in Bothell last year and everybody just loved it. I think he still has a travel agency in Edmonds.

Christmas season doesn't start here until I play my four favorite holiday CDs -- Harry Connick Jr, Elvis, Johnny Mathis, and Nutcracker Suite. I get out a stack of Christmas CDs the day after Thanksgiving when the cookie making begins.

"Why all of a sudden has the word Christmas become so offensive"

Okay, I'll take the bait, although it'll probably get me a Friendly Reminder from the staff. Although throughout my entire childhood "Happy Holidays" was a very common salutation referring to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, and it didn't seem like people started freaking out about it until maybe 10-15 years ago, I honestly fail to see what the big problem is. At least half a dozen different religions and cultures that I know of - and I don't claim to know them all by a longshot - celebrate midwinter holidays/festivals, and more cultures and religions are being represented in our country all the time. What is the harm in making that one extremely small gesture of inclusion in the midst of all this emphasis on Christmas? (Six to eight weeks of Christmas decorations in every public place and Christmas carols playing nonstop everywhere aren't enough for reminding people it's Christmastime? Just how stupid are people assumed to be? Talk about offensive...) Isn't Christmas supposed to be about being nice to other people? More importantly, though, since when does INcluding someone else automatically equate to EXcluding you? (I'm sure that a great many of those complaining about "Happy Holidays" being "politically correct" would absolutely plotz if I wished them a "Bright Solstice"!)

On the music point... I knew one public elementary school music teacher on another forum who very nearly lost her job by staging a winter concert that did not include any overtly religious Christmas songs (although there were a couple of secular ones, so Christmas certainly wasn't left out entirely), but did include songs from other winter holidays, although none were religious songs for those other holidays either. It was ALL secular music, holding everyone to exactly the same standard with no special treatment for anyone! (Isn't the usual accusation of "political correctness" about favoring one group over another?) It was actually pretty sad how many parents, people who claimed to be intelligent and oh so open-minded, completely missed the entire point of treating everyone just the same. Sounds like qdognj's daughter's teacher did exactly the same thing, and like those parents he may not have quite caught the point. :-( BTW - Don't try to tell me that the Dreidel song is religious Hanukkah music (LOL), that there's ANY such thing as religious Kwanzaa music (Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, it's a cultural one), or that a song about Santa Claus like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" isn't a secular Christmas song - does Santa show up for the Fourth of July or Columbus Day? (I'm sure my nephew would be thrilled if he did!)

Oh, and I hear religious carols like "Silent Night" or "The Little Drummer Boy" on the Muzak in places like the supermarket and bank quite regularly (I don't go near the mall from Veterans' Day to mid-January because I'm not quite completely out of my mind, so I don't know what they're playing there these days.) They're often "pop" or "country" versions. Maybe people are more traditional in New England than they are in California (ya think? LOL).

ok, so the Dreidel song has nothing to do with Hanukkah,RIGHT...johnmari, you missed my point entirely..I am in favor of celebrating all holidays,not just Xmas..But let's not take away the meaning behind the holiday..ps, Santa DOES show up on both the days you mention, at th end of the parades,or at least here on the East coast

About the christmas "controversy": So some businesses changed Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays, hoping to also attract the non-Christian crowd to improve business but at the same time thinking that this change is benign enough to not offend Christians.

And then comes the backlash from a focus group that identified this as a potential hot button - hot button issues are money makers - and it is propagandized by a loudmouth on TV as the "War On Christmas (tm)". Ca-Ching! Another division train is gaining momentum.

Having grown up with Christmas as the best time of the year (still is for me), this artificial brouhaha made me research the roots of it all. And lo-and-behold, the whole holiday apparently is a convenient adaptation of pagan Winter Solstice (Dec.21st is when the days get longer again - happy celebrating the impending return of longer, warmer days in cold, drab Central/North Europe, where the pagans where shivering their butts off back in the days before modern conveniences).

For a fun time: Search online for Jesus birthday and be prepared for a long read :)

"Can't we all accept it for what it is, the day Christ was born, and those who *chose* to celebrate, do so? "

Well, we can pretend, no problem. Merry Christmas!

p.s. Favorite Christmas Music: "Last Christmas" (j/k).

The reason Jesus' birth is celebrated on December 25 has to do with the Roman holidays of Saturnalia -- which lasted from Dec 21 (the winter solstice) to Dec 28 -- and the alleged birthday of Sol Invictus, the chief figure of a Roman mystery cult very popular in the first few centuries AD (or CE -- Common Era -- if you want to be PC about it). The Romans celebrated the birthday of Sol Invictus (translation -- the "Unconquered Sun") on guess what day? December 25.

Quite naturally, the Early Church Fathers wanted to make Christianity more attractive to potential converts from paganism, who were used to enjoying big celebrations at that time of year. So sometime around-about the Third Century AD (or CE), they decided to fix the date of Jesus' birthday as Dec 25.

In actuality, the birth probably took place in the early spring, since that's lambing season in that part of the world. The shepherds would be out with their flocks at night during lambing season in order to assist any ewes that were having difficulty birthing and also to protect the newborn lambs from predators. It wasn't (and isn't) customary for them to spend nights with their flocks at any other time of the year. So if you believe in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' birth, it's hard to see how it could have occurred in December and have shepherds out watching their flocks by night.

The rowdiness, drunkenness and general debauchery of the old Roman holidays clung to Christmas celebrations all throughout the Middle Ages and clear up to the Victorian Era, when the modern traditions of the Christmas celebration gradually emerged. There have been and still are some Christian sects, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not celebrate Christmas and don't regard it as a Christian holiday. In fact, the Puritans in early New England outlawed the celebration of Christmas because it was too "pagan" for them.

But be you believer of any persuasion, or doubter, or anything in between, may you make merry at Christmastide in whatever way you choose!

Favorite Christmas music -- "The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice," originally recorded in 1978 and recently reissued. The highlight of the album, IMHO, is the late John Langstaff signing "The Lord of the Dance.'

Can't these off topic, silly conversations be put in the Hot Topics Forum or the Kitchen Table Forum? There is a place on this board for this stuff and it is not in the Buying and Selling Homes Forum. I hate unintentionally clicking on silly threads like this. The title said "Maybe a little off topic" so I clicked it thinking it might be about landscaping or bank CDs or something slighkly related to homes, read the first post and skimmed the thread while I was trying to scroll to the bottom. When someone posts something so completely off topic just IGNORE their quest for attention and let the post drop off the page. Please.

I'm sure she meant no harm, and doubt she was trolling for attention. This isn't exactly a thread for "Hot Topics", and not everyone posts at the Kitchen Table.

Go easier on her.

Bud....This was predisclosed as "off topic", so why even peruse it,if this kind of post annoys you? And THEN, you posted a reply??? There are plenty of posts i have little or no interest in, some "on" topic, others "off", but i read only those i want, and ignore those i have no interest in..Perhaps you should follow your own advice

qdognj, I know that the title said it was OT but it said that is was maybe OT and just a little OT. I assumed it was somehow remotely related to *buying and selling homes*. Long threads argueing about religions, kwanza, xmans, saturnalia, soltice, ect. with everyone trying to get "their point" across belong in the Hot Topic Forum. And BTW this is not "my own advice" as you put it. It is the GW policy. Thats all.

no, follow your own advice and SKIP the post entirely...

OT posts are allowed as long as they pertain to the holidays!! I think I read that somewhere on THS...anyway,
Happy Thanksgiving!!

All the more reason that we should consider asking for a "conversations" side like many other forums do. I've been around GW for a long time. I've been to some of the forums that started the conversations sections, which IMO every forum here should have. I can;t tell you how many people have left due to not liking off topic conversations (before the extra forums were made) and those that left due to not being allowed any off topic...

BTW, I follow the thinking that if I dislike something, I hit the back button on my browser.

I went to the suggestions forum and asked for a conversations side. Those that would like to give input, please do. This will allow those that want to talk about things other then buying & selling to do so, as well as those that don't like to see off topic posts, now won't have to.

Here is a link that might be useful: Suggestion post

Thanks roselvr! I've added my request to yours.

What's a Christmas season (or Holiday season, if you prefer) without its Mr Grinch?

Thanks Bud_w1 for stepping up and taking the roll!.

BTW, I brined my Thanksgiving turkey for the first time this year. It was really good -- very moist and juicy, even the breast meat. I intend to do it every year.