Time for another round of Rank ‘Em! We did this a while back with American Idol winners.
This time, your favorite Christmas carols. The ones that really get you in the mood or tap into fond memories or whatever. Just your favs, you know. So 2 lists: One secular; the other, well, more nativity themed. Religious, if you will, ‘tho I don’t like that word.
Okay. Here’s mine. I had a very hard time putting this together and I’m still ready to change it with my very next breath. Hard to choose, peeps! Just try it!
Tracey’s Top Five Secular Christmas Carols:
1. Christmastime is Here (from Charlie Brown Christmas)
2. Winter Wonderland
3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
4. Sleigh Ride
5. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Tracey’s Top Five Nativity-Themed Christmas Carols:
1. O Holy Night
2. Silent Night
3. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
4. O Little Town of Bethlehem
5. In the Bleak Midwinter
Oh, I don’t know! I keep wanting to change it! Oh, well. I’ll just leave this as it is. (AGHH! Did I mention this was hard?)
All right. Now … how about you guys? Your turn.
Ready? Rank ’em!
I talked about part of this on my blog already, but here goes:
Top five Nativity-Themed:
1. Silent Night
2. Hark the Herald Angels Sing
3. Sussex Carol (“On Christmas night, all Christians sing…”)
4. Of the Father’s Love Begotten (gives me cold chills. I can imagine it being sung hundreds of years ago in abbeys and monasteries and cathedrals)
5. Tomorrow Shall be My Dancing Day.
Top five Secular:
1. Deck the Halls
2. The Vince Guaraldi version of Christmastime is Here (same as Tracey’s #1)
3. O Tannenbaum
4. White Christmas (especially the old doo-wop version by the Drifters: it’s so funny and overdone)
5. My Favorite Things (which might not technically be a CHRISTMAS song but which is played a lot this time of year and which I love)
Runner Up: “Linus and Lucy,” from the Charlie Brown Christmas. Also not technically a Christmas song but it sure makes me think of Christmas.
I also love the Gene Autry versions of Rudolph and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.”
Secular:
1. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Judy Garland)
2. The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole)
3. Feliz Navidad (Jose Feliciano)
4. Christmas Can’t Be Very Far Away (Amy Grant)
5. Aspenglow (John Denver)
* I’m adding a 6th to be applied to either list – I’m not sure if this is a secular or nativity song – The Twelve Days of Christmas (John Denver and the Muppets).
Nativity
1. Carol of the Bells
2. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
3. Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)
4. O Holy Night
5. What Child is This?
Ooooh … this was a hard one, Tracey!
Ricki- and Autry’s version of “Here Comes Santa Claus”, though he says ‘Santy Claus’, which I love.
Secular Five:
1)The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole version)
2)It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
3) Does ‘Feliz Navidad’ count here or there? I mean, the lyrics don’t give you much to work with…
4)Have a Holly Jolly Christmas
5) Okay, I hate myself b/c this is the epitome of everything wrong with the secular Christmas, but
“Santa Baby”. It’s so funny in an awful gold-digging way and Eartha Kitt- well, what can you say?
Nativity-Themed:
1)The Snow Lay on the Ground
2)Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
3)The Holly and the Ivy
4)In the Bleak Midwinter
5)I Wonder as I Wander
Hey, Tracey, how about a third category- Christmas Novelty songs? Then I could move “Santa Baby”.
We can do “Most Hated” at my place.
Hmmm…makes one really pause to think. I had to go look up the names of some of my favorite ones!
Secular
1. Old Toy Trains
2. Little Saint Nick
3. Alfie the Christmas Tree
4. It’s in Every One of Us
5. This Christmas I Spend w/ You (sung by R. Goulet) tied with Christmas Is
Nativity-Themed
1. Rocking (Little Jesus, Sweetly Sleep) sung by J. Andrews
2. The Bells of Christmas
3. What Child is This?
4. Carol of the Bells
5. Ave Maria (sung by my Grandma) tied with Do You Hear What I Hear?
Sorry I had two ties but I really couldn’t decide!
Sal: I almost put “Santa Baby” on there because it makes me laugh so much (because it’s so counter to what Christmas is really about) but I was kind of afraid that people might take it the wrong way. (And ONLY the Eartha Kitt version qualifies. All others are pretenders.)
I forgot for novelty songs
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer!!!
Just wouldn’t be Christmas w/o it!
I agree w/ the Eartha Kitt version of Santa Baby…she owns that song.
Secular:
1. “Step into Christmas” by Elton John
2. “Merry Christmas, Baby” by Charles Brown
3. “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses
4. “Fairytale of New York” by Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl
5. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (I have a funny story regarding that song.)
Spirtual:
1. “O Holy Night”
2. “Mary, Did You Know?”
3. “For Unto Us a Child is Born” from The Messiah
4. “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”
5. “O Sing to God” from the movie The Bishop’s Wife
Great topic! Some of you guys got some of my faves, so I will try to give different songs unless it would destroy my list to omit the repeat.
Secular:
5. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” Bruce Springsteen. Not a big Boss fan, but this is great.
4. “Holly Jolly Christmas,” Burl Ives. Must have Burl Ives at Christmas.
3. “Skating,” Vince Guaraldi Trio – that tinkling piano riff is sweet.
2. “Sleigh Ride,” Leroy Anderson – instrumental only, thanks. (Though I will listen to the Wall of Sound version.)
1. “Little St. Nick,” the Beach Boys. It’s a CAR SONG about SANTA’S SLEIGH, which is officially awesome.
Nativity:
5. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” Russ Taff. Put out a jazz crooner Christmas album, of all things, and it really works. In fact, his “Angels We Have Heard On High” can also go here.
3. “We Three Kings,” the Beach Boys. Those harmonies are incredible. Would be higher if they hadn’t omitted the third verse about myrrh.
3. “Carol of the Bells.” I never knew this was a nativity song until I heard the lyrics just this past weekend. Would have put it on the other list then. Guess what, I prefer instrumental versions. (Shocker.)
2. “Little Drummer Boy,” Harry Simeon Choir. You can tell I bias towards the classics. Dad had the vinyl. I heard it on a grumpy, spitting turntable about 82,000 times before I was five, and can’t get enough.
1. “O Come All Ye Faithful.” English, Latin, whatevs. I’d listen to this in Klingon if it were translated.
And bonus content! – five oddments:
5. “Christmas Wrapping” is a fun song.
4. So is “Santa Baby,” and agreed, it has to be Eartha Kitt.
3. Sorry Sam. Can’t STAND “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Both Elmo and Patsy are gettin’ coal from me.
2. “Run Run Rudolph” by Chuck Berry – thumbs up or thumbs down? (I say thumbs up.)
1. In general? I don’t dig the synth Trans Manheim Steam Orchestra stuff. It sounds too much like I’m watching hockey highlights.
Someday, I’ll convince someone with a real singing voice to record the christmas song I wrote many years ago. I didn’t put it on any of the lists, but I confess, I do like singing it.
Secular:
1) White Christmas (Bing Crosby)
2) The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole)
3) Winter Wonderland (Any version, but the Lennon Sisters was my grandma’s fave, so therefore mine too)
4) Blue Christmas (Elvis…it HAS to be Elvis)
5) Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (any version)
Nativity-Themed (and for a non-religious person, I LOVE the nativity-themed Christmas songs. I can’t explain this, but I really, really do.)
1) O Holy Night
2) O Little Town of Bethlehem
3) Adeste Fideles/ O Come All Ye Faithful (I’m with Nightfly…english, latin, klingon…they’re all good)
4) Hark the Herald Angels Sing
5) The First Noel
oh my gosh, Nightfly, I TOTALLY forgot Little Saint Nick. That’s another great fun one. (And I like the Muppets’ version of it, almost better even than the original).
Two that I can’t stand:
“I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Ugh. It has such a KNOWING, wink-wink, nudge-nudge tone to it. My response would be, “OK kiddo, you know so much now, it’s time to stop doing the Santa thing.”
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” I can take this MAYBE three times during the season but it seems to be played incessantly in stores and such – probably because it doesn’t offend the Aggrieved Class because it doesn’t mention Jesus. And I’m sorry, but Brenda Lee’s voice makes me break out in hives after a while.
Good idea, Tracey, and good suggestions all!
Secular:
1) Baby, It’s Cold Outside
2) Feliz Navidad
3) What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
4) Step Into Christmas
5) Little St. Nick
Nativity:
1) I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
2) Angels From the Realms of Glory
3) Once in Royal David’s City
4) O Little Town of Bethlehem
5) It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Oh and also, all of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and the entire John Denver and the Muppets album, both of which have some secular and some borderline Nativity (if not actually about Jesus, definitely tapping into the true meaning of the season).
Good answers, everyone!!
Taking much needed sanity break from my final project (yeah! done at midnight!) to answer. . .
O.K., my parents are both very musical–much vinyl played at dinnertime–and my dad is a church organist, so some of these are gonna be a bit obscure.
Secular:
1. Merry, Merry Christmas–Captain Kangaroo
2. Christmas Is Coming–Miss Piggy on the “A Christmas Together” CD/John Denver & the Muppets (oft quoted by my dad)
3. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town–Pointer Sisters (my sister and I were nuts about the Motown Merry Christmas special)
4. The 12 Pains of Christmas–I think it’s by Bob Rivers?
5. Merry Christmas (I Love You)–James Brown (it’s just so funky)
Nativity:
1. The Hallelujah Chorus
2. Once in Royal David’s City
3. Silent Night
4. Nativity Kyrie–to explain, this is the “Lord have mercy/Christ have mercy” set to Adeste Fideles. It’s cool to sing Christmas Day at Mass.
5. Joy to the World (before the words were changed to more gender-neutral ones)
Some Advent ones: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming; O Come, O Come Emmanuel; Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord–Godspell. Must be on vinyl, with scratchy horn intro. 🙂
Fun!!! And I love everyone else’s answers.
Advent?
besides the big hitter “Emmanuel” (ever sung it in Latin? Very nice.)
“O Come, Divine Messiah”
“People, Look East” (with lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon, who also wrote “Morning Has Broken”)
and the alto recitative and solo from “Messiah”: “O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion”
I like to play that during cookie baking, and after a glass of wine, will sing along to it, like it’s Christmas at the Myerson.
Ooo, Sal, we practiced “O Come, Divine Messiah” after church last Sunday–I think we’re singing it this coming Sunday.
I know I’m in late (I plead stomach virus) and I already said this over at Sal’s, but:
THE #1, MOST-HATED LIKE THE BLACK DEATH OF DOING TAXES, CLEANING SEWER LINES AND BIKINI WAXING A TRANSVESTITE: “The Christmas Shoes”. Whoever wrote that piece of treacly, overblown, saccharine, poo-poo ought to be shot. But they play it on the radio here every five seconds becuase people love it so much it makes them cry. *GAG*