The Sounds of Christmas

I love listening to Christmas music. I have been known to start playing it a bit on the early side. I know there was a year I began in September. Pete claims I started once in August but I'm not ready to agree with him. This year I waited until October. Yes, thank you. I consider that an accomplishment as well. I just love the sounds of Christmas. I have lots of good CDs. The music is uplifting to me and reminds me of the joy of the season. When I was in a slump a few weeks ago, my Christmas CDs were one of the things that got me through. And they remain in my disc changer here at home.

As I child, one of my favorite records was Amy Grant's Christmas album. I know she has several now so I can't remember what the title was. But it had a song called, "Tennessee Christmas" (which I find kind of ironic since I get to spend Christmases in TN every few years now :)) and another entitled, "Emmanuel." I used to blare these songs over and over.

Now some of my favorites are:

• "December", George Winston
• "Merry Christmas", Mariah Carey
• "These Are the Special Times", Celine Dion
• Handel's Messiah
• "Christmas Live", Manheim Steamrollers

I would love other suggestions too. I'm always up for expanding my collection.

We also have a Rosie O'Donnell Christmas CD that has a duet with Elmo so you can imagine that's been getting a lot of play time around here. Emma loves to sing and dance as I do (forgot about this similarity in my last post) so I'd love to expand her collection. Any suggestions for good kids' Christmas albums?