You hear a lot of grumbling about holiday tunes. It seems a lot of people hate all forms of holiday music, and many others just burn out on it long before December ends. Perhaps the trick is moderation and a thoughtful approach to music during the holidays. I think a great playlist for December includes some wintry songs tossed in with holiday specific songs.  I try to keep the emphasis on personal favorites and have a weakness for tunes that explore the joys and sorrows of the holidays, and indeed, life writ large. I believe holiday music, like the holidays themselves, should be richly imbued with personal meaning and deep feeling. Each song I selected for this list is, for me, just that.

It’s a real joy to have two writers I deeply admire, Eleanor Henderson and John McNally, as guests for this holiday list.  Both are true music fans. Eleanor’s bestselling novel, Ten Thousand Saints, is rife with descriptions of the straight-edge music scene and her knowledge of music glimmers on nearly every page. John McNally is a versatile writer, teacher and editor who sprinkles his work with choice musical references. John is an avid music listener and collector – and recently acquired his very own vintage jukebox.

John writes: “Songs written by rockers with the intent of being Christmas songs are usually bad or just plain hokey (Elton John’s steep decline began long before The Lion King when, in 1973, he recorded “Ho! Ho! Ho!...Who’d Be a Turkey at Christmas”), and while I begrudgingly enjoy some overhauled Christmas songs, like Bob Seger’s “The Little Drummer Boy,” the fact is it’s still “The Little Drummer Boy,” and Bob is singing, “Ah, rump-bah-bah-bum.” Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of ‘50s and ‘60s soul, and I can definitely entertain doing the splits to Clyde McPhatter and the Drifter’s “White Christmas” (or, given my recent knee surgery, maybe just a few spins punctuated with jazz hands). My favorite Christmas song, hands down, is Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”; I still get chills when, near the song’s end, Love starts hitting that upper register. But everyone knows that song, right? So, my pick would be the lesser-known “Merry Christmas Emily” by Cracker, off their 2001 album Forever. The song begins with what sound like sleigh bells, then kicks into some up-tempo keyboards and guitar work – a head-bobber of a song with cheery background vocals, but once David Lowery starts singing, you realize that you’ve entered the darker worlds of Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski:

I have a fondness for songs whose lyrics betray the tempo of the music – “Beds are Burning,” anyone? – but listen: you can just drink some eggnog, crank this Cracker song, dance to it, and pretend it’s all about snow and sunshine. And, really, you can’t go wrong with a song that cites It’s a Wonderful Life, can you? No, you can’t.”

Eleanor weights in on a more traditional note. She writes:  “I've been a big Christmas carol dork since I was a kid. The Christmas Eve I was five, my mom woke me up to see the carolers performing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" outside our picture window. It was thrilling, in part because I wasn't wearing underwear under my nightgown and I thought my singing neighbors might be able to tell. In that same living room I first heard Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" on one of my parents' Christmas LPs. For this Florida girl, the idea of snow always seemed (still seems) as miraculous as the birth of Jesus. For that reason, it's got to be my all-time favorite. These days, alas, I'm the only one in my house who loves singing carols. My three-year-old says, ‘Mom, you're hurting my ears.’”

We’ve got “White Christmas”, we’ve got Cracker, we’ve got aliens and Judy Garland and “Auld Lang Syne” and a whole lot more.  Hope you enjoy the tunes. Happy holidays.