What's your favorite Christmas Carol

[ilikegir33]

Band Aid (1984)'s "Do They Know It's Christmas". Also, I really like most of the songs in The Nutcracker, as well as "The Christmas Shoes". It's so sad!

[Roy Mustang]

Josh Groban version of O Holy Night.

O Holy Night

I like I really like Mary Did You Know, but the only version of it that I like is the one that Clay Aiken. Its the only one that sounds good from other singers that I heard sing it.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[Blitzkrieg1701]

I like I really like Mary Did You Know, but the only version of it that I like is the one that Clay Aiken. Its the only one that sounds good from other singers that I heard sing it.

Mark Lowry's original live version is pretty good, a lot better than the studio version he did later.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

The Holly and the Ivy
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
and...can't help it...Sleigh ride .

[Wyntre Rose]

Not "people", just me. XD

My friend, you are not alone. I like Merry Christmas Darling, too. In fact, the Carpenters Christmas albums are probably my favorites of all time.

As far as individual songs go, though, Carol of the Bells, I Wonder as I Wander, and O Come O Come Emmanuel are up at the top. I seem to lean towards the minor, haunting carols as opposed to the cheery ones. Though I like a lot of those, too.

For secular songs I like Christmas Waltz, First Snowfall of the Winter, the music from the Nutcracker - not exactly carols, I know, but it's Christmas-y, right? - and wow, I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention, but I never took Baby it's Cold Outside to be about someone drugging a date into spending the night...I always kind of liked that song... And I probably just ruined any credibility I have right there. lol.

Blitzkrieg1701, that version of Carol of the Bells by The Bird and the Bee is amazing!!

Edit: I just realized why I never took Baby it's Cold Outside to be about date rape - the version I grew up listening to had dialogue around it and through it between the two singers, and the man asks the girl to stay "just one more night, etc..."and at the end of the song, they are obviously, well, making out...lol, which always made me uncomfortable as a kid, but now that I know how other people interpret that song, maybe they were making a point to show that this is a relationship between two conscious, consenting adults, and not date rape...which makes sense. So, in that context, the line about "what's in this drink?" always made me think that the guy wasn't very good at making coffee or something. lol. It's all about the context. My Theology prof would be proud.

[Roy Mustang]

Speaking of Merry Christmas Darling, here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksWQfk3VvBQ

That is the only version that they play on the radio here is the Carpenters one. I like it as well.


[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[EricTheFred]

"The Baby Boy" aka "The Virgin Mary Had A Baby Boy" aka "Glorious Kingdom" - a Caribbean carol. The two best renditions of it I've ever heard are Harry Belafonte and a very old LP in my father's collection of The Luther College men's choir. Both are hauntingly beautiful and peaceful.

I went onto Youtube trying to find it, and ran across all kinds of fast, jazzy performances. The one that probably weirded me out the worst was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (Nothing like watching a couple hundred pasty white faces trying to get all ethnic on you. Swells my pride as a Caucasian, it does.)

I did, however, manage to find one of the fast jazzy versions that stood head and shoulders abovel the rest, if only in sheer joy of the performers.

Click Here


My second choice is "Cold December Flies Away". I didn't find an English Language Youtube I liked, but I found it in the original language (Catalan) in a very enjoyable performance:

Click Here


And finally, there's "My Heart Always Wanders", which I heard often as a child and then never again. Finally learned a few years back this was because I had been hearing a Scandinavian Christmas hymn being sung in English by elderly relatives who've since passed away. The Norwegian name is "Mitt hjerte alltid vanker". Found a really nice performance of this one:

Enjoy.

[Wyntre Rose]

And finally, there's "My Heart Always Wanders", which I heard often as a child and then never again. Finally learned a few years back this was because I had been hearing a Scandinavian Christmas hymn being sung in English by elderly relatives who've since passed away. The Norwegian name is "Mitt hjerte alltid vanker". Found a really nice performance of this one:

Enjoy.

Wow, I like it a lot.

[rocklobster]

That is the only version that they play on the radio here is the Carpenters one. I like it as well.


[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

Yeah, it's so tragic about Karen Carpenter. She had such a good singing voice on all their songs.