My favorite part of the holidays? Sure, I like the lights and the treats and the gifts and the general festive-ness, but if I had to choose just one thing to keep, the thing that most indicates “this is a special season”, it would be Christmas music.
In our family, we start listening the day after Thanksgiving (in non-COVID times, we’d typically be at my sister’s house lounging and playing board games) and it’s on an almost-constant loop for the next month.
I tend to gravitate toward Jazz Standard-era stuff with some choral and instrumental classics and a few folk renditions thrown in. I can be awfully traditional about my holiday music, and it takes me a long time to accept a new Christmas song or – worse – a new artist trying his/her hand at an old classic. It’s nothing against them, it’s just…not what I’m used to, and I admit, during the holiday I really like what I’m used to.