Monday, December 22, 2014

Christmas Music!

Christmas is almost here- there's less than a week left to wait! To make the time go faster, I thought I'd share about one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season: the music. I'd happily listen to Christmas music all year round, except that then it wouldn't be Christmas music anymore. (Also, my family holds to the "no Christmas music before Thanksgiving" thing.) Anyway, for your enjoyment, here are seven of my favorite Christmas songs!

1. "The Promise" by Michael Card
If any Christmas music could be given the title of "epic", I think it would be this song. It's beautiful and, in a way, powerful. I just love everything about it: the melody, the lyrics- especially the chorus- and the whole feel of it. It also sounds like something that could be sung by one or two of my favorite novel characters, which is a bonus- not many Christmas songs have that distinction.

2. "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" by PureNRG
I don't think a lot of people have heard of this song, which is sad, because it's really awesome. I love how triumphant it sounds, particularly the last verse.

3. "Joy to the World" 

This is actually one of the first Christmas songs I remember learning. When I was a really little girl- maybe four or five years old- my Sunday school class (and maybe the class above mine as well) learned four Christmas songs to sing in front of the church. This is the one that's stuck with me the most. My favorite part is the third verse, though it seems to be left out a lot (at least in my experience). It's a great reminder that, even if the world is messed up, it won't be forever.

4. "Merry Christmas" by Third Day
This is just a really sweet song. It and two other similarly themed songs- "All I Really Want" by Steven Curtis Chapman and "This Christmas" by TobyMac- are some of my favorite modern Christmas songs just because they're so touching. They also remind me of some of my novel characters, coincidentally. (Though, as I think the songs came first, maybe the songs influenced my creation of the characters and I just didn't realize it . . .)

5. "Christmas Ceilidh" by Celtic Christmas

I discovered Celtic Christmas music about two years ago, and it- like most Celtic music- is lovely. This is the only song I could find on YouTube from my favorite Celtic Christmas album. (This one, by the way. It's super cheap to download it digitally; I definitely recommend it.) Thankfully, it happens to be one of my favorites from the album. I love the pictures it creates in my mind of the friends gathered for their Christmas celebration, their singing and enjoyment of one another.

6. "Carol of the Bells" by BarlowGirl
To me, this song sounds really eerie for a Christmas song, but that's why I love it. It gives me this image in my head- almost a story, but I can't quite turn it into words yet. I imagine the darkness gathering, trying to snuff out the light- but it's stopped by the bells and their reminder of the Light. Or something like that. Eventually I'll figure it out- I hope.

7. "Christmas is Coming"- traditional
  I like the Danny Byram version best, but it's not on YouTube. This one is pretty good, though. It's just a fun little song, and I can imagine it echoing from one corner to another of a busy village square in some English town of a hundred-odd years ago. (It'll also get stuck in your head, and you'll likely be humming it the rest of the day. You're welcome.)

What are your favorite Christmas songs? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

4 comments:

  1. #2 and #5 won't work for me, I'm afraid.

    I love the songs that have a hint of sadness, ending in hope. Songs like O come, O come, Emmanuel; I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day; and We Three Kings of Orient Are.

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    1. Really? That's weird. :P They seem to be working fine on my end.

      Those are all awesome songs.

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  2. This is such a great collection of music! We did Joyful! Joyful! We Adore Thee (Actually called Ode to Joy) in choir, but it was remixed with a really fun beat. I loved that song. One of my other favorite Christmas songs is God with Us by Casting Crowns.
    Thanks for commenting over on my blog Inklined.

    ~Sarah Faulkner

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    1. Thank you! That's cool that you did one of my favorite songs in choir. And I listened to "God With Us" (even though it's after Christmas, haha) just now and it's very nice. :)

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