12 Wonderful Christmas Songs

An Irving Berlin song about an old, traditional Christmas, this was one of the wonderful songs featured in the 1942 film Holiday Inn. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this is the number one hit single of all time, with over 50 million copies of the Bing Crosby version sold, and over 100 million counting all of the remakes.

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1. Bing Crosby – “White Christmas”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSUT8Inl14A smooth, sultry R&B Christmas, sung as only the incomparable Etta James could.

2. Etta James – “Merry Christmas Baby”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1xyYQhSuHg 

From her 1955 album Christmas With Patti Page.

3. Patti Page – “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtEOtrGzibc

Being of a certain age, to me no Christmas would be complete without this song.

4. Vince Guaraldi Trio – “Linus and Lucy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZG8MJ64ic

Followed closely by this, also a Vince Guaraldi song, written specifically for this special.

5. A Charlie Brown Christmas – “Christmas Time Is Here”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hajwg6kxpQ4

Performed as only ELP could: three musicians sounding like an entire orchestra, grandiose, and catching the sound and spirit of that joyous day.

6. Emerson Lake and Palmer – “I Believe in Father Christmas”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjggWxGYLdo

What a wonderful Christmas song by Jethro Tull and that magnificent madman of rock ‘n’ roll, Ian Anderson. One of my all-time favorite rock Christmas songs.

7. Jethro Tull – “Ring Out, Solstice Bells”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ShwcA8KkkM

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From his album Merry Axemas – A Guitar Christmas.

8. Steve Morse – “Joy to the World”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDmw1CCia6A

Everyone is Jumpin’ to Jingle Bells.

9. The Brian Setzer Orchestra – “Jingle Bells”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFdfrdgB4XE

Mannheim Steamroller, who virtually created a music career out of holiday music.

10. Mannheim Steamroller – “Carol of the Bells”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3sYPyk3Y0

When you’re young and on your own and things seem like they’re just an endless grind, everything sometimes works out better than you’d have hoped.

11. The Waitresses – “Christmas Wrapping”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARq6uYSsUq0

And lest we all forget, dazzled by the glitz and noise and the shopping and feasting, the true meaning of Christmas, told only as this could.

12. A Charlie Brown Christmas – “The Meaning of Christmas”

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