It’s been a couple of years since I’ve dropped any Christmas music on you. Prior to Rdio (RIP) and other music services, it was a little more of a chore to source and share decent tunes. It takes work to put these together but I do enjoy it for a few reasons:
I like decent Christmas music
What they play on the radio is good to get you into the Christmas spirit but after a few days it becomes quite repetitive
It’s fun to share with others
Due to work and life, I haven’t had a great deal of time to go actively searching for new stuff this year. But, ironically, due to the fact that we’ve been working crazy-late hours the last couple of weeks, I have been able to listen to hours of random playlists and been able to toss a few tracks I’ve liked to my own Spotify (RIP Rdio + please hurry up Pandora Premium) playlist.
Some of you who have followed along for years might know that there’s a few tracks I think are imperative to a quality, heavy-rotation Christmas playlist. Some of them aren’t available on music services and only exist on the hard drives of folks like you and I; it’s up to us to carry the torch for the next generations. Heavy burden, I know. Those tracks aren’t on the Spotify version of Creepy Santa below; if you want the extra good stuff, you’ll have to download the ZIP folder and play it the old fashioned way (iTunes).
If nothing else, the download might be worth it for the smiles track 20 can induce; it’s a modern day take on the creepiness that is Baby, It’s Cold Outside.
Jimmy Fallon wins the internet for at least the next couple of hours. See if you can make it through the first 30 seconds of this without cracking a smile.
Jimmy Fallon, Mariah Carey, & The Roots – All I Want For Christmas
As much as it pained my office mate, I started the process of organizing the 2012 edition of CreepySanta in October. It’s not the be-all, end-all Christmas album but it should be a good mix for you to keep your Christmas party hoppin’ or help soundtrack your tree decorating festivities.
This ain’t the first Christmas music rodeo around these parts either, feel free to hit the archives for past compilations.
Track List
1. fun – Sleigh Ride
2. Meaghan Smith – Silver Bells
3. Never Shout Never – 30 Days
4. Andy Williams – It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (a shrift remix)
5. The Boy Least Likely To – Happy Christmas Baby
6. Hugh Laurie – Silent Night
7. Colbie Caillat – Christmas in the Sand
8. Fitz & The Tantrums – Santa Stole My Lady
9. Kay Starr – I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (STUHR remix)
10. Vince Guaraldi Trio – Skating
11. Olivia Olson – That Christmas Feeling
12. Pomplamoose – Jingle Bells
13. Gavin DeGraw – The Christmas Song
14. Meiko – Maybe Next Year (X-Mas Song)
15. Black Prairie – (Everybody’s Waitin’ For) The Man With The Bag
16. Grant Dawson – It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
17. Punch Brothers – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
18. Troy Andrews – O Holy Night
Rdio users: I’ve also made a playlist for you but it only has about 75% of the tracks. You can thank the record industry.
I’m a little late in getting this to you but you’ve still got a couple of weeks to hopefully enjoy it before you’re completely tired of Christmas music. If you’re new to these parts, feel free to digbackthrough the archives and find any/all of the previous tracks I’ve posted. Hopefully the links are still working; if not, feel free to ping me and I can do my best to help you out.
I should probably do some explaining for things like Beiber and Train but I’ll just ask you to hold your judgement until you’ve had a chance to check them out once or twice.
In lieu of giving you 20-30 products that I think are cool, this year I chose to go a different route and reach out to a few that I connect regularly with to have them help curate a list of potential gifts for us, you, or the ones you might be buying for.
I gave them no constraints on what to pick but I did make sure to get a couple of ladies in the mix just to get that perspective. Some of the things on the list you could pick up today and some of them you’ll probably have to wait a little longer before acquiring due to budgetary constraints. I had a good time compiling; I think the participants had a good time collecting; and I hope that you’ll have a good time reading through the list.
See anything we missed? Let me know here or on Twitter. Spread the word.
2011 Collab-mas List – A collaborated Christmas list by Christian Ross & Friends
*If you’re an IE user, it’s not that I don’t dislike you, but you’re gonna have to be happy with what you get. It ain’t pretty but I’ve got other things to get done today.
