As I mentioned earlier, I adore Christmas music. I have converted all of my Xmas CDs (and a few albums/tapes) to MP3 for ease of listening. Since I have an MP3 player in every room in the house (barring the living room/dining room, where I have wireless speakers that can pick up music from my computer), MP3 is the way to go for me. After all of my conversion, I found out that I have 766 Christmas MP3s. That’s almost 41 hours of music. And so far this season, I’ve only listened to 487 in my playlist that includes them all.

As with my nonXmas music listening, I have ecclectic tastes. I have no problem listening to Julie Andews sing “I Wonder as I Wander” followed by the Chipmunks singing “Hang Up Your Stocking.” Or Loreena McKennitt singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” followed by the Muppets singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” One CD in my collection that’s probably not in most people’s is The Cincinnati Men’s Chorus’ A Homemade Holiday.

The Cincinnati Men’s Chorus is an all gay chorus from, as you might imagine, Cincinnati. Five years ago, the Dayton PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians And Gays) chapter worked on bringing the CMC up to Dayton to do a fundraiser for both organizations. Each year it’s become more and more popular – and my folks and I have gone each year. Last Saturday was when they held their Dayton Concert (basically, their dress rehersal for their Cincinnati performances). It was, as always, wonderful. And if anyone reading lives near the Cincinnati area, I encourage you to attend their concerts this weekend. They perform tonight and tomorrow night at the Jason-Kaplan Theater at the Aronoff Center for the Performing Arts. It’s at 8:07pm tonight and 2:07pm tomorrow. Check out their website for more information.

One of neat things one can do when one’s Christmas tune collection is in MP3 is figure out which songs are most prevalent. I discovered that I have 12 versions of “Away in a Manger” (no idea how many are the English version and how many the American style), 14 of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and 16 of “O Come All Ye Faithful” (two as “Adeste Fideles”). But the number one duplicated song that I have is “Silent Night” with 24 versions (three as “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht”).

Now, if you were to ask me what my absolute favorite Christmas song was, well… That’s not an easy decision. It has changed throughout the years. I know it used to be “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” But “The Coventry Carol” has been a favorite for a long time, too. (I love Alison Moyet’s version.) And “Pat-a-pat-a-pan” and “I Wonder as I Wander” (both sung by Julie Andrews). But there are many others that I love. Since I enjoy choral singing (especially boys & men’s choruses) the King’s College Choir occupies a good deal of my collection. And since they and Julie are English, I know a lot of English carols. And two versions of several popular tunes. (“Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and others.) Etc. etc.

So I know you’re dying to know what all exists in my song collection… Thanks to MusicMatch, and Adobe Acrobat, I can make a songlist of all of my Christmas tunes. You can find it on my website here.