These precious moments, hold them very dear.

Far and away my favorite Christmas song. Period. No more to say.

Keep Christmas With You

A hard left turn...

...into Obscurity Land.

Longtime Dee-troit dee-jay Tom Ryan had a beloved(?) character in the form of Count Scary. Even as a ten-year-old I was aware that he was a mere ripoff of Count Floyd, but here's a footnote I'd forgotten. It's Val, a relative of the Count, who was way too cool for school, lived in one of the Grosse Pointes, and wore a Lacoste cape. (It was the '80s, don't you know.)

Val Scary

Here's some merriment and jollity, boy howdy.

Brace yourselves. It's time for some aggressively peppy music. The Wayne King Orchestra and Chorus make "Happy Happy Joy Joy" seem like the soundtrack for seasonal depression. Now jingle!

Jing-a-Ling-a-Ling

Too much!

The year's Rankin/Bass specials are behind us, but this pair of songs is going to stick in your head until dang near Arbor Day. The Hellblinki Sextet with one of my wife's all time favorites...

Snow Miser/Heat Miser

Jacksons, Osmonds, Bradys, Partridges... Rhodeses?

They say there was once a Texas oilman. Rhodes was his name. Because he had a brood of seven children, and because it was the '70s, he did the only logical thing: he attempted to make them into a musical act.

And so one fateful day, The Rhodes Kids released "Rock 'N' Rhodes Christmas". Although it does tread into way-serious dirge territory, the lead track here is highly listenable.

Winter Wonderland

It's time.

OK, kids. Here it comes. Pipe down, stop shuffling your feet, and prepare to groove. This is, without question, the best Christmas album of 2014, and yet the amount of play it got on the Big Deal Commercial Christmas Stations was either zero, or close enough to zero to count as a rounding error.

And that's a shame.

I'm not shilling here. I get nothing for promoting this album other than the happy thought of good music spreading across the land. But that said, it's a highly recommended purchase. (Even on December 29.)

It's the Blind Boys of Alabama and Taj Mahal.

Talkin' Christmas

Mmmm. Pork tenderloin.

I was looking for my favorite version of this song. I asked my dad about it, only knowing the name of the song and a few others on the album. He said he had no recollection... and then within two minutes had come up with the name of the artist, the name of the album, the name of the label, the names of a couple of guys who had played on it, and that he'd once worked with the tuba player, who was brilliant, but not so much with the punctuality.

If you're ever looking for an explanation of how my brain works, you know whose genes are to blame.

Unfortunately, I still can't find Eddy Davis' rendition. Next year, maybe. Until then, here's the Hotlanta Trio.

Santa Claus Blues

להדליק את האורות של חנוכה

It's a fact. As a general rule I tend to go for the fun, the funny, or the irreverent. But there's a time and place for everything, and for the last night of Chanukah, here's Julie Silver. Even a midwestern goy like me has learned most of the lyrics already, even if only through osmosis, but I've never heard this sung more beautifully.

Chanukah Blessings

Yingle all the way!

Harry Stewart (nee Skarbo) was a songwriter who gained most of his fame in the character of Yogi Yorgesson. That's right... he "played ethnic". Some of his other characters have aged poorly, such as the Japanese Harry Kari, however given that Stewart was a Norwegian lampooning Swedes, I can't quite get myself too worked up over that. (My prejudices are showing, I guess.)

I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas

Bonus song!

Even with considerable delays, I'm going to post 31 Christmas/winter songs, as well as 8 Chanukah songs. And I'll get back to that in just a moment, but first here's a little something extra.

At the House of WO we'll remember 2014 as the Christmas we said goodbye to Dorothy Bell. Diminutive in no dimension except size, she was a sweet, loving daughter of English immigrants... and cross her at your own peril. She wasn't afraid of anything except dementia and living in a nursing home; she lived 96 years and avoided both.

As I've been thinking fondly of her, I've found this Steve Martin classic running through my head. Sing along, won't you?

Grandmother's Song

You got your klezmer in my hip-hop! You got your hip-hop in my klezmer!

It might not be anyone's first guess for "two great tastes that taste great together", but in the hands of Erran Baron Cohen (Sasha's brother) it works, man.

Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah

I hope they pass the audition.

Have you noticed that songs that say they're rockin' so seldom are? This one gets closer, at least. The genre of Beatles-styled Christmas music continues with The Fab Four...

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Ringing and dinging

(Ai yi yi... I have a lot to catch up on here!)

Previously I posted the original Hebrew version of this song, but I know the English version better, having gotten the 45 in Denmark as a kid. It won the 1979 Eurovision song contest, you know.

My geography wasn't deceiving me, no, Israel isn't in Europe. So why are they in the Eurovision Song Contest? Because the Israel Broadcasting Authority is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. (Yes, I know that just pushes the question one step further, but I'm just going to go with it.)

Halleluya (English)

The youngest one in the studio

Once upon a time, sitcoms would suddenly, arbitrarily make the cast have a musical career, absent any explanation. And the Brady Bunch is perhaps the classic example of that.

Although they only did one Christmas episode, they did commit some Christmas music to disc. But why on earth would they pick the kid with an interdental lisp to sing "Frosty the Snowman"?

Frosty the Snowman

You're so hot on that show.

Marc Shaiman was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's musical collaborator during the early days of South Park. Later, he wrote the music for the Broadway adaptation of John Waters' Hairspray, and in an inspired convergence, the Hairspray cast recorded Shaiman's South Park arrangement of Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel. (Harvey Fierstein as Cartman? Genius.)

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel

Why do I have to go to school again?

Of all the happy holidays, to me this one was far and away the happiest. What was the best thing? The unpredictability, naturally. What other holiday allows you to watch both The Price is Right and Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, all while popping up unexpected? Here's the Ninjas.

Snow Day

It's ו before י, except after ה, right?

It's the LeeVees again, and this time they're asking a question that came up just today at work. (For the record, they conjured up 16 likely transliterations.)

How Do You Spell Chunnukkahh?

Take one down, pass him around, 9999 Santa Clauses on the wall!

Now this one? This one I think has been unfairly neglected. And I don't just mean, like, Heat Miser/Snow Miser neglected (although good luck hearing those on the Crimmus stations!) I'm talking full on Here Comes Suzy Snowflake level of neglected. And that's a shame. For that song and for this one. It's the Caroleers.

10,000 Santa Clauses

What rhymes with Tu B'shevat?

I'm Lutheran by heritage and agnostic by belief, so leaven my Chanukah opinions with that knowledge. (You don't have to worry about leavening; Passover won't be for months.) That said, this song by Tom Lehrer is one of my favorites.

Chanukah in Santa Monica

A-one! An' a-two! An' a...

Once upon a time, Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Makers weren't just a Saturday Night Live sketch involving plastic baby arms. My grandmother was a massive devotee, and as soon as I hear Welk's bright, bouncy arrangements, my head fills with memories of ads for Serutan, Geritol and Rose Milk. Hey, they knew their audience.

Ho Ho Ho