The Christmas CD Meme

From Wendy at Zoom Times:

If you were trapped on a desert island and it was Christmas and all you had was a small generator, Christmas lights for your coconut tree, an endless supply of Christmas cookies and eggnog, your CD player and 6 Christmas CDs , which 6 albums would you want them to be?

Ah, difficulty. Let us begin with saying that Christmas music is all about nostalgia, and therefore selections are not to be critiqued based on any particular aesthetic or associational standards. It is what it is.

Therefore:

1. Come On Ring Those Bells (Yes, I know it's an LP, but Santa made me a CD version.) This went on the record player--when we still had a record player and actually used it, back in the dark ages--the day after Thanksgiving while I deep-cleaned the living room in preparation for Christmas decorating.

2. I don't even know the name of this one, but it would be the CD version of the record from my mother's and aunt's childhood of Christmas selections, including such rarities as "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mamba" (What's a Mamba?). We always played it during Christmas cookie bake, and when the LP itself became too scratched my aunt found the various recordings on other CDs to roughly recreate it.

3. The first volume of the Messiah (which I have lost this year! Alas! Alack!) Also: Important exception to the No Christmas Music Until After Thanksgiving Rule: The Messiah is OK any time of year, especially appropriate at Easter and during November while waiting for the rest of Christmas music to be available.

4. Good Christian Men Rejoice. I'm a sucker for men's chorales. (I confessed this after compelling DOB to confess he preferred women's groups.) Plus, my brother used to sing with this group, although he's not on this CD.

5. White Christmas. It's not Christmas for DOB and me without White Christmas, and it's not White Christmas without Bing. Although if we had a Dean Martin Christmas CD Bing might be out of luck.

6. OK, so far this post is practically an autobiography. And I'm not ready to fill slot number six yet. I still have room for another Christmas CD in my life.

Now I tag . . . anyone brave enough to list their favorite Christmas CDs.