What is your favorite Christmas song?

[Ken Morgan]

Yes I recognize the irony of not being a believer, but like it or not we all grew up on Christmas music, and we can all appreciate good music.

So which ones do you like?

My choice for song and performers is this classic,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=_zMhSjDqvRs

 

[Xue Sheng]

Christmas at K-Mart


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X96Un6POoo8

 

[terryl965]

Silent Night, just because it is so wholesome.

 

[MA-Caver]

White Christmas

Silent Night by the Temptations.

 

[Jade Tigress]

I have a few favorites: Merry Christmas Baby, Please Come Home For Christmas, I Believe in You, and Do You Hear What I Hear.

 

[Ken Morgan]

I have a few favorites: Merry Christmas Baby, Please Come Home For Christmas, I Believe in You, and Do You Hear What I Hear.

Do you hear what i hear? Great tune.

Oh and this one too,

 

[harlan]

An oooold recording of my mother when she was 13, singing Shubert's 'Ave Maria'.

 

[Stac3y]

O Holy Night (despite the fact that I'm a heathen), and Weird Al's Christmas at Ground Zero. Yeah, I know. I'm psychotically eclectic.

 

[celtic_crippler]

You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Silent Night. It was written on a guitar, and I think that's how it sounds best.

 

[kungfu penguin]

christmas shoes, let there be peace on earth, one king by point of grace, mary's boy child by bony m, hark the hearald angels sing, oh holy night, what child is this, first noel, my wife hates hey santa by the wilson girls so of course i sing it to her every year!!

 

[Carol]

Ack! I can't pick just one!

As far as the more traditional carols, my faves are
O Holy Night
Silent Night

I have a couple faves that are modern, and are more secular in nature:
Anything from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Jingle Bell Rock
Baby, It's Cold Outside....ooops! Missed that Ken nabbed that one before me

 

[Brother John]

Silent Night
Little Drummer Boy (Didn't know that Bing and Bowie did that together! Very cool)
We 3 Kings


Used to sing my babies to sleep every night with silent night and we three kings. I remember when my son was maybe 3 he finally realized that that was specifically a "Christmas" song.
Sweet memories!!

Your Brother
John

 

[Gordon Nore]

Another I'd like to add...

"Christmas in the Trenches" is a powerful ballad from John McCutcheon's 1984 Album Winter Solstice. It tells the story of the 1914 Christmas Truce between the British and German lines on the Western Front during the Great War from the perspective of a fictional British soldier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_the_Trenches

More recently, McCutcheon republished the song in children's book form with drawings based upon photographs from the Christmas truces.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Silent Night
Little Drummer Boy (Didn't know that Bing and Bowie did that together!

Yeah Bing died within a few weeks of recording it. Two amazing vocalists.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Yeah Bing died within a few weeks of recording it. Two amazing vocalists.

Interesting how that clip has become part of the Christmas pop culture. At the time it aired, I'm sure it had fans of Bing and Bowie scratching their respective heads. Today, however, it's a standard that frequently airs as a music video on MuchMusic (I'm sure MTV, VH1 and the others broadcast it as well) each Christmas season.

Although I'm a relative non-believer, I do find that Christmas music that is absent of Christ or Christianity to be quite unnerving. Can't stand Jingle Bell Rock, for instance.

 

[Xue Sheng]

OK now for the serious answer

Any Christmas song my youngest sings is currently my favorite

Yesterday it was Rudolf the day before it was Jingle Bells and today it will likely be something different.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

I'm not a Christian either, but I like Christian imagery to be present at Christmas. This is my favorite Christmas poem, by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

This is my favorite carol.

Carol of the Bells

Hark how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say
Throw cares away

Christmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the bold

Ding dong ding
Ding dong ding

That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling

One seems to hear
Words of good cheer
From everywhere
Filling the air

Oh how they pound
Raising the sound
O'er hill and dale
Telling their tale

Gaily they ring
While people sing
Songs of good cheer
Christmas is here

Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas

On on they send
On without end
Their joyful tone to every home

Dong ding dong ding
Ding dong ding

Composed by Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych (1877-1921) in 1916. Originally titled Shchedryk, this Ukranian folk song is about a sparrow and the bountiful year that awaits a family. It was first performed in the Ukraine on the night of January 13, 1916, on the Julian calendar this is considered New Year's Eve. In the United States the song was first performed on October 5, 1921 at Carnegie Hall.

Carol of the Bells, also known as the Ukrainian Carol, was adapted from Shchedryk by Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921), which was first performed in December 1916 by students at Kiev University. The original Ukrainian song is based on an old Slavic legend that every bell in the world rang in honour of Jesus on the night of his birth.

 

[Carol]

Although I'm a relative non-believer, I do find that Christmas music that is absent of Christ or Christianity to be quite unnerving. Can't stand Jingle Bell Rock, for instance.

Actually what unnerves me is Jingle Bell Rock and Baby, Its Cold Outside are songs (two songs I love) is that that get lumped in to "Christmas music" when they really aren't Christmas songs at all. There's no mention of a holiday, nothing about anticipation or preparing for a big event...they are simply songs about a snowy winter evening.