Now That's What I Call Christmas

Christmas in June? 'Fraid so. At least on the music front.

In my never ending (foolish) quest to gather up all the decent castoff CDs of other people, I see a lot of Christmas ones. I can't even remember if I've bought any recently. There's nothing real memorable that sticks out.

Except this one ... "Now That's What I Call Christmas," a two CD set from 2001 that has "36 classic songs from Christmas past and present."

I was a little reluctant to get it since I already have lots of these songs on other CDs. Certainly Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song." And I'm drifted in with copies of Bing's "White Christmas," including a 78 rpm of the first version somewhere, unless it's broken, a few 45s, maybe on an LP, and then CD. Elvis' "Blue Christmas" I think I have three or four different copies. Perry Como's "Home For The Holidays" is probably on the Christmas CD I have by him, and just this last season I made an MP3 of the 45. Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" is a slightly different story. I only had a 45 till this past Christmas, at which point I bought her Christmas CD. Now here it is on this collection too. The Beach Boys' "Little Saint Nick" I have in rich abundance. So for the first CD, I have most of these elsewhere. Maybe not Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." And I certainly don't have anything by Kathy Mattea. I'm not too sure who she is, although I've heard of her.

The second CD is more up to date, meaning I don't have too many of them. John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas" is pretty old, so I have that on the 45 and on a CD. But most of the others are probably new to my personal collection. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime," I don't believe I've ever owned that, which is hard to believe. I don't really like it that much. Michael Bolton's on here. I wonder what that'll sound like. Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas," I always avoid stuff like that and didn't get caught up in it at all at the time. Mannheim Steamroller. I see their Christmas albums all the time, dime a dozen. Now that I mention it, I believe I did buy a couple of them in the last year. There's someone on here just called Joe, a track called "This Christmas." I don't know Joe or the song. But if it's a "classic song," I look forward to hearing it.

I hemhawed a little over spending a couple bucks for this one. But here it is.