I’ve been listening to a lot of Christmas music, especially in the car.  I love it.  I look forward to the switch to all every year, and like everyone, I have some favorites I’m excited to hear.

“The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain…Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.” ― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

So many Christmas songs have an ability to move me in ways that other types of music lack.  Maybe that is just because they are played annually and often during the season.  Maybe it is just that the holiday season is full of activity, and that gives these songs special meaning.  There are a handful of songs that make me think of the smell of the Santa bag we had at our house one year.  Another group transports me to my grandparents’ house on a December evening, the tree glowing intensely red.

I’ve made a “Top 15” list here, which was pretty hard.  There are so many I love.  A week from now, this list could be a completely different one too.  At the time of writing this, these are my favorite Christmas songs.Continue Reading