12 Days of Christmas & Christmas Music Advent

I've enjoyed advent calendars of many kinds since childhood.  Now that we have 12 days remaining, I'm starting to become even happier about the season.

A few days ago, I discovered that Amazon is offering a free holiday song download for each day of the month until Christmas.  All of the songs remain available during the advent time, so you don't have to necessarily visit every day, but the link to the page is not always easy to find.  So I'm offering the link here as my little gift to those of you who love holiday music as much as me but are budget conscious: Amazon's 25 Days of Free. 

I already owned a few of the songs offered.  The Elf's Lament by Barenaked Ladies featuring Michael Buble is one of my household's holiday standards and worth the effort of downloading it.  For free, remember.  It's one of those songs that makes me laugh but in a lighthearted way that isn't rather perverted like other "classic" humorous Christmas songs.  Please, I have no desire to hear "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" this year.  I've managed to avoid it so far and figure I'm halfway there!

There's also Vince Guaraldi's Greensleeves from Charlie Brown Christmas which is another favorite I already owned.  Again, very much worth free if you don't already own it.  Actually, not on the 25 Days list, but also free are Fur Elise and O Tannenbaum from the same album.

Not on the advent list, but also free, is a music sampler of standards, Amazon Holiday Sampler, featuring some Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Roger Wagner Chorale and a few others.  This is the stuff I grew up with and still adore.  I still have Dad's LP of some Christmas songs by these artists although I don't own the turntable to play it.  That LP is Christmas to me.  I've managed to find some of the songs digitally, but alas, some of them have gone the way of the dodo, I'm afraid.

This year I've also discovered my favorite version of Twelve Days of Christmas.  This one will cost you 79 cents, but it's wonderful.  It's 12 Days of Christmas by Straight No Chaser.  Makes the song quite tolerable and even fun again.  Really, you have no idea how funny it is from the listening sample which is straightforward.  I had to listen to it several times in a row and promptly find John to force him to listen to it.  There are too many surprises in this one to count.  Brilliant and I don't say that lightly.  Not this time.

Here's the popular YouTube video of the song in case you've missed it.  I had to have the download so I could listen to it elsewhere for years to come. 



If you've never downloaded with Amazon before, you do need their downloader software, a small and easy to install application.  The downloader will then automatically take care of loading any music you choose into iTunes (I know this firsthand) and other software applications (I only know this in theory). 

And, yes, I know the Twelve Days of Christmas are from Christmas until Epiphany but I didn't know that as a child.  The Twelve Days started on the 13th for me then and in my mind still do.