The Windham Hill Winter's Solstice series, now at least seven albums long, suits me nicely.
Would George Winston be in there anywhere? He has some good "wintery" albums. (He also has an amusing little note on his "December" album, in which he apologizes for playing hymns and assures his audience that he's really not religious.)
Handel's Messiah
Hunter Rose, good to hear from you again.
My all time favorites:... The Pogues' "A Fairytale of New York" (although the cover by No Use for a Name is better)
That's just blasphemy. There's simply no way to improve on Shane MacGowan and Kirsti MacColl singing that song.
I'm no fan of most Christmas music, but there're good albums to be had. Some of my favorites are the Chieftans' Bells of Dublin, The Asylum Street Spankers' A Christmas Spanking, Rhino Records' Blue Yule compilation, and Willie Nelson's Pretty Paper.
James
I avoid music that's been rewritten to be "politically correct."
Then you should get Mojo Nixon's Horny Holidays. It's this Jew's favorite Christmas album.
If you like the old school stuff, Perry Como, Elvis, Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole recorded more Christmas albums than anyone could stand to listen to.
I like the Windham Hill Winter Solstice CDs. I've got some other non-traditional acoustic and jazz type Christmas/holiday season type music, but I can't remember the names of most of it.
If you don't have a Bob Rivers Christmas CD, get one (at least check out some of the tracks on Amazon). He's put out a few, including "I Am Santa Claus" and "White Trash Christmas" and they are all funny as hell.
Charlie brown christmas
pete
Thanks, Pete. I almost forgot. Probably my favorite Christmas music.