Christmas songs that get me into the festive mood

Do you love listening to Christmas songs? Or are you a Christmas Grinch?

As I come from a cold country (Wales) I find it hard to get into the Christmas spirit with the hot weather New Zealand gets at Christmas time. So to help bring on those Christmas jiggles and smiles I listen to Christmas songs. Below I have compiled a list of my "go-to" festive songs. Hope you get some enjoyment out of them too. Do you have a favourite Christmas song?

Crofts Family - The First Noel

Michael Buble - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas

Norah Jones - It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Anya Marina - I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas

Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree

The Twelve Posts of Christmas: A Little Bit Something Different

Christmas music,

Love it or loath it, it's kind of unavoidable at this time of year so it's always nice to discover something new.

Personally I'm always on the look out for something just a little bit different for my Christmas listening and luckily there is heaps to choose from, whether it's a new version of an old favourite or a new-new song that you end up playing on constant replay,

Though if you do you may just drive those around you to throw the stereo across the room or take to it with a sledgehammer,

Christmas Was Better In The 80's / The Futureheads

No surprise really that I would like something like this.

I Saw Three Ships / Sting

I adore this version so much. It's one of those songs that makes you feel all warm and happy.

Mary, Did You Know? / Pentatonix

I very new discovery for me, this is another old song given a new twist and is just beautiful.

Have Yourself  A Merry Little Christmas / Jensen Ackles

You just knew that I had to include this.  After all it's  not every day that one of the actors from one of my favourite shows releases a song.  Even better it's actually really good. Totally swoony worthy...

Text Me Merry Christmas / Straight No Chaser & Kristen Bell

You've got to have a least one slightly goofy Christmas song and this one seems to be it for this year. That its gone viral on YouTube probably comes as no surprise.

Also check out some of Christmas CD's that we have got such as Now That's What I Call Christmas which features a realm of  favourite Christmas rock, pop and ballad songs as well as Christmas at Downton Abbey  and Holiday Wishes by Idina Menzel

Also see last year's post Not Your Average Christmas Music

Stalking the catalogue: The girl in the song

"Wake up Maggie
I think I've got something to say to you
It's late September and I really should be back in school..."
- Maggie May by Rod Stewart

This book! OH. This book. I'm not sure it adds any great meaning to anybody's life but my own, but it fills one of those feel-good boxes (that I do so enjoy ticking) with its quirk factor and trivia.

If I had to nail it down (by all means, let's), it'd be the fact that it appeals to my not-so-inner-quiz night-attending geek. My three favouritest ever, ever, ever songs inspired by women are, in order, Maggie May by Rod Stewart, Lola by The Kinks and My Sharona by The Knack.

I always knew why Stewart penned the lyrics to Maggie May: he lost his virginity (many, many, many years ago) with an unknown girl at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in 1961.  As songs of regret go, it's a classic (in my mind).  Lola, by The Kinks, is a song my very open-minded dad liked to sing to me as a kid which, going by the rather oppressive environment he grew up in, is rather surprising.  The song itself is about a sexual experience with a transvestite.  I'm not sure who the song is really about - Rolling Stone had their own idea that it was Candy Darling - whether or it not it was isn't categorically stated in the book, but it makes for interesting reading, anyway.  And My Sharona, gosh as rock tracks go it is awesomeness personified.  As rock tracks inspired by dirty lustful intentions towards young girls not even out of their teens go, oh dear *pulls a face*  Did it put me off the book?  No way!  But I listen to My Sharona with a prejudiced ear, now.

If you're into music trivia this is well worth the read. I'd also recommend The boy in the song: the true stories behind 50 classic pop songs.

Title: The girl in the song : the true stories behind 50 rock classics
Authors: Michael Heatley & Frank Hopkinson
Published: Chicago Review Press, 2011