Christmas Music and Audiophiles?


I personally really enjoy listening to Christmas music. I find that when it's done well it can be better than just about any other types of music. I even listen to it from time to time throughout the year.

Are there any audiophile Christmas Albums that are worthly of your dedicated stereo listening systems or do you only play Christmas music on your whole house systems as background music?

What are you favorites?

One of my personal current favorites is the Canadian Tenors Christmas album. I have five more Christmas CDs on the way to enhance this upcoming season.
mceljo
A delightful little CD titled "What if Mozart wrote "Have yourself a merry little Christmas"" by the Hampton String Quartet. Great Christmas music done as string quartets.
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Winter Wonderland are especially nice, no piece over six minutes
To add to my previous list: The Rose Ensemble "And Glory Shone Around: Early American Carols, Country Dances, Southern Harmony Hymns, and Shaker Spiritual Songs" (2008). There, 6 quick recommendations that sound great, are excellent performances, and don't fall into the "crap Christmas music" category, which I guess means popular nonsense!
More and more good sounding Christmas stuff lately - "The McGarrigle Christmas Hour" is great. Shelby Lynne's is good. Emmylou Harris "light of the stable". Dean Martin's got a good one too. A new favorite of ours is Sloan Wainwright's "On a Night Before Christmas".. She does a great job of Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel! We have the new She and Him - haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.
I'm definitely a fan Christmas music. Kind of like the McRib. It comes around once a year, and those six weeks are about all one can/should take on.

Ditto on Charlie Brown Christmas - should be in any rotation. To round that out, try "The Ultimate Christmas Collection" by the Bryan Setzer Orchestra, "Merry Christmas From The Trailerpark" by Antsy Mclain, "Suzy Snowflake" by Rosemarie Clooney (or the original), "Donde Esta Santa Claus?" by Augie Rios and (more recently), Guster, "Domenick The Italian Christmas Donkey" by Lou Monte, etc. -

For our friends of the Jewish faith and those (like myself) who are (sort of) in spirit, give a listen to "Schlepp The Halls With Loaves of Hallah" by Rabbi Tevye and the Three Weissmen.