25 Days of Christmas Albums: Leading to Epiphany ✧ An Introduction

I love Christmas music as a genre. My affection comes I think from the confluence of disparate motivations and forces at play. The Christmas album is an intersection of the sacred and the secular, of selling out and cashing in (or not), of moving tides of social opinion. There is no guarantee of success: the formula works for some, not for others. Ugly people have made some great Christmas songs. Otherwise talented folks have released Christmas tunes as insipid as unseasoned turkey*.

I’m going to regularly post this month about some of my favorite holiday albums. My hope is that you’ll find a couple albums in here you love this holiday season as we move toward the new year. May we each experience epiphany this season, whatever that means for you. Joy to you and yours. *Just to clear the air now, I think Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” is a horror. That is all.