My favorite Christmas Holiday Songs

Well, once again the Christmas holiday season is upon us.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for putting up with my rantings here. In honor of the season, I thought it would be interesting to highlight a few of my favorite holiday songs. I would love to hear from some of you as to what are some of your choices. I think I might change this list after I get a hold of Michael Buble’s new holiday album.

You can never go wrong with the Boston Pops version of Sleigh Ride. Every time I hear this song, I can picture myself in a sleigh, going through the woods with the wind blowing through my hair.

When I was a small #eventprof in elementary school, I would always try to have our music classes sing The Twelve Days of Christmas during the holiday season, as it would take up a good amount of time in the class.  This interesting version by Straight No Chaser has a unique flavor to it and usually has my friends laughing when they hear it.

There are many fine versions of Jingle Bells out there.  This particular version always brings a smile to my face.  While growing up, I had small dog named Skeeter that would go absolutely beserk whenever he heard this song.  It would have been interested to see how Skeeter would have reacted during the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl season when they adopted the Baja Men’s Who Let the Dogs Out!

The next song is a local Baltimore classic that was done in the early 1980′s, Crabs for Christmas by David DeBoy.  This video was captured off a comedy sketch show called Crabs produced by Maryland Public Television in the mid to late 1980′s.

Growing up, my parents had a Christmas album of songs performed by the guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins.  I would eventually wear that album out by continually playing it to hear this version of Jingle Bell Rock.

Deck The Halls is another classic and this particular version is by Mannheim Steamroller, a group mainly known for their recordings of Christmas songs.

Our next Christmas song is performed by the Velvet Chainsaw, Dave Lutz. Scratch that, I mean the Velvet Fog, Mel Torme and it is the Christmas Song. Torme would often be in Baltimore over the holidays for the work he did with Maryland Public Television when they were producing a New Years Eve telecast for the PBS network.  This is a personal favorite, and Nat King Cole’s version is not too shabby, either!

Until just a few years ago, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas was the best selling song of all time.   This song never gets old and for many people I know, this is THE song for the Christmas holiday.

The Waitresses 1981 version of Christmas Wrapping has a decent beat and some clever lyrics.  Bonus points for the play on the word rapping, which had only started a few years earlier.

Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You has grown on me over the years as I have gotten older.  The original video for this song is fun to watch as well.

Last, but not least, here is Boris Karloff with You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch from the 1960′s cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  I have always enjoyed watching this movie that was produced by Chuck Jones, who also directed the very best of the Bugs Bunny cartoons at Warner Brothers years earlier.

I would welcome your comments on my selections and would love to hear about your choices.  To my readers, subscribers, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, creditors and anyone I might have missed – Best Wishes for the Holiday Season and Merry Christmas to you and your families.

Small legal disclaimer:  All musical works featured in this blog post are the property of the various artists, songwriters, publishing houses that created the works.  I claim no ownership of the musical works featured and really would prefer not to be sued for any copyright infringements, especially since I have no money…. Feliz Navidad!