A couple nights ago Dave and I were riding in the car, twirling through all of our Christmas music options — we have 2 local stations offering holiday tunes, plus the “Holly” station (XM Channel 23 — we have a 90 day free trial with the new truck) and our respective iPods have Christmas music playlists that we can pipe through our car stereo.

Ashanti’s Christmas Melody came on and Dave and I got into a discussion of why we can’t find a station that just plays the “classics”. We’re both in agreement that Christmas Shoes is one of the saddest songs ever and we don’t care for it. I don’t feel too joyful when I hear it. Sorry if that’s just me. I know the song means well.

This led to a debate about Christmas being a time for being especially kind to others…but is that really Christmas? Isn’t Christmas fundamentally a celebration of the birth of Jesus, and not of buying things?

Or was Christmas originally a Pagan winter solstice festival celebrated by the Romans?

So here’s the deal: What do you think of all these pop stars coming out their their own Christmas tunes? Redefining classics year after year.

I’m mixed. I really enjoy when the pop stars record renditions of the classics (such as this Barenaked Ladies holiday hit here).

But not all of them.

There are several original holiday recordings that I like, such as Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You.

But again, not all of them.

Dave’s claim is that “the classics” include not only the traditional songs (Silent Night, O Holy Night, Away in a Manger), but also some neo-classics, such as White Christmas, Ruldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. He’ll even put the original Charlie Brown Christmas songs in that category.

I’m crying foul at that, that White Christmas and Rudolph were probably regarded similarly to Christmas Shoes. A modern-day non-traditional Christmas song that hits the charts and becomes very popular.

So…what’s MY favorite Christmas song? Harry Connick, Jr.’s arrangement of Silver Bells. I particularly enjoy all his big band holiday arrangements.

Dave’s favorites? I’m going to guess that his favorite holiday album is Canadian Brass’s “The Christmas Album”. He really enjoys any of the classics on that album, performed in their full brassy glory 🙂