It’s Christmas day and MadDoc and I have been sitting around having breakfast and generally getting ready for the return of MadBee from her dad’s place. The exchange happens every year on Christmas day at 2 p.m. We’ll see you in a little bit, Lafollette Walmart.
I watched Elf last night (maybe a Christmas movie ranking next year) and have been listening to holiday playlists on our various music listening options (thank you Apple Music and Sirius XM) over the last couple of days. Now MadDoc is ready for a little nap after her 24 hours of call. I’m not in a kerchief or a cap, but we do have the doggies scattered all over the bed with us.
I’ll skip the usual politics, at least for one day, and give you a nice list of my top Christmas songs. I’m not a big traditional Christmas carol fan and you won’t find many of the old standards on my list either. As I was going through and doing this, though, I found that there were a lot more songs that I would consider for the list than I expected. Almost made the list: Little Saint Nick – Beach Boys; Run Rudolph Run – Chuck Berry; Christmas Don’t Be Late – Chipmunks; Mele Kalikimaka – any version; O Holy Night – any version; Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt
Here you go!
10. Need A Little Christmas – any version. Nice upbeat traditional Christmas song. Here’s a version from Johnny Mathis.
9. Penguin, James Penguin – Brad Paisley. MadDoc is the country music fan in the household. I think Brad Paisley’s a pretty talented guitar player and has some good songs occasionally. Here’s his fun Christmas song.
8. Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney. A nice original Christmas song from Paul.
7. You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Thurl Ravenscroft. The best thing about the animated Dr. Seuss classic.
6. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town – Bruce Springsteen. Bruce with all of his energy. There are a lot of versions on YouTube. This one is from 1978 and might be the one we all know?
https://youtu.be/oPM73W69wVs
5. Do They Know It’s Christmas – Band Aid. A We Are The World-ish song from the 80s. This might be MadDoc’s favorite.
4. Carol of the Bells – various artists. I pretty much dig any version of this song, instrumental or otherwise. Here’s one from Trans-Siberian Orchestra that kicks butt.
3. Elf’s Lament – Barenaked Ladies with Michael Buble. A clever and funny original Christmas song by one of my favorite bands. Bonus points for pro-union ideas plus Steven Page is still with the band when they did this song. The album version includes Michael Buble, but I’m including a live version that doesn’t include Buble.
2. 12 Days of Christmas – Straight No Chaser. If I was going to put a song by an acappella group on here, you might have expected to see something from Pentatonix. But I’m a sucker for a good song with some humor. This group’s mashup of 12 Days is funny and clever. Stay to the end to see them use Africa by Toto in the song.
1. All I Want For Christmas – Mariah Carey. I’m not usually a Mimi fan, but this is a great song. Underrated part of the song are the backing vocals. Plus, it’s in Love Actually, one of my favorite Christmas movies. And, here’s the song from the movie, so a two for one bonus.