In cautious praise of Christmas songs, for the season that's in it

I guess it is that time of year where I am allowed to think of Christmas music, after my December 1 moratorium deadline on the matter has passed. In fact, I quite like Christmas music, for exactly 5 weeks per year, when I let my soft sentimental side shine through like fairy lights in a snowy mist (see what I mean?). Yes I know it is naff as hell, and it may be psychologically impossible to like Joy Division and Christmas music and retain any musical integrity or sanity (perhaps that is the sanity clause?), but for this season I soften the edges of my musical field of vision to allow some stuff that wouldn't be representative of my playlists the rest of the year creep through.

Anyway, the original Christmas music of my childhood was the Carpenters' Christmas album, which I actually went and bought again in a fit of tenstively-induced nostalgia on Christmas day from iTunes around 2 years ago. I must admit that, Christmas or not, crap songs and cardigans or not, Karen Carpenter has one of the most pure and beautiful voices of all time, so I will start with some unashamedly unabashedly naff 1970s Christmas music (like I said, I have a seasonal dispensation for this stuff, just for one post):

Moving (swiftly) along, I remember a charity CD in 1986 for the Special Olympics which included some good acts doing Christmas songs, and the stand-out by a mile was a tongue-in-cheek version of 'Baby please come home' by U2, which I rediscovered below:

Of course, that Christmas was the time of the Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York' and I know it is pretty bloody obvious to love that one but it sure does have something, and the line 'we kissed on the corner and danced through the night' gets me every time:

Moving ahead by over a decade brings me to Sufjan Stevens' massive Christmas set of a few years ago; as with all his work, it takes a bit of effort and not all of it hits the target, but there are always a few gems, in this case 'Sister winter' and 'Come on, let's boogie to the elf dance', neatly anchoring the opposite ends of the hedonic scale of Christmas from solemn to silly magnificently:

Moving ahead once again (this is like a selection of Dickens' Christmas ghosts!) brings us to the Killers' 'Great big sled' a few years ago, which is a very likeable and fun attempt at getting into the festive spirit (as was their 'don't shoot me Santa'):

The final song for this post brings me right up to this year and Bob Dylan's completely unexpected 'Christmas in the heart' CD, which I like against all expectations. It is perhaps typical that I do not like his critically acclaimed stuff and, when critics hate something (like this), I actually really like it, not in a 'judging by normal standards way' but in a 'judging by Chritmas standdards (when taste is allowed to go out the window) way'. My current favourite is the very Poguesian 'Must be Santa':

Normal service and standards will be resumed next post!