Christmas albums, part 1

I guess everyone starts his or her Christmas season at a different time. When I was in Home Depot back in mid-October looking for a nozzle and some fertilizer, I found a full half of their garden section chock-full of Christmas merchandise. Obviously, Christmas had started for them. A local radio station started playing round-the-clock Christmas music on the Monday before Thanksgiving. A little early for my taste, but that’s what they are doing.

In my family, the Christmas season still pretty much starts when we get back from our Thanksgiving weekend. [Which, by the way, was most excellent this year . . . we had a great time with family in Pennsylvania, and my 25-year high school reunion was a blast.] Normally on the ride home, when we are a few hours from arrival, the thoughts start to kick in about how much needs to get done in the coming days and weeks. The feeling is usually reinforced as we enter our neighborhood and observe that apparently everyone else has been home all weekend putting up their lights and decorations. Looks like I’ll be the last one again this year.

Anyway, if you have looked at my profile, you may have noticed that I collect Christmas CDs. I am currently up to over sixty in my collection. Like most folks I really like Christmas music, and a long time ago, I began to amass a few dozen, starting with most of the better known albums out there. But over time, I got more and more intrigued. I began seek out albums by specific artists, novelty acts, and rarities (I admit that I paid forty dollars for one rare Christmas CD a few years back).

My self-imposed rule is that I don’t start listening to my Christmas CDs until the ride home from Thanksgiving weekend. But in recent years that has presented a problem. That is, I am not able to listen to all of the CDs in my collection during the Christmas season. There just isn’t the time. But even though I can’t fit them all in, I still find myself pondering which ones are my favorites—trying to mentally construct my “Top 10” list.

So, I’ve made a decision. This year, I am going to listen through my entire collection. I’ll knock most of them out driving to and from work. And, I am also going to construct and present to you a few lists of my favorites. I think I am going to go with at least: top five novelty albums, top five honorable mention, and top ten best Christmas albums. Based on the thought I’ve given to the subject so far, picking the best albums is going to be an extremely difficult task for me. There are a lot of really good ones.

So anyway, please stand by for parts 2, 3, etc. in this series as I embark on listening to sixty-plus CDs and feeling a whole lot of Christmas cheer!