Christmas presents

A Christmas tradition:

If you’re looking to download some good, free and legal holiday music follow this link any time between 12:01 a.m. Saturday and midnight Sunday to get your copy of “Seriously West Coast Vol. 2, Happy Holidays” from Nettwerk Music Group and The Vancouver Sun. It features Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies and plenty of other quality Can Con.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Hem
“Magic Snow Music,” Christophe Beck
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings,” Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan
“A Pretty Good Year,” Jacob Altemus
“Father Christmas,” The Kinks
“My Favorite Things,” John Coltrane
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” U2
“Christmas Blues,” Holly Cole
“Silent Night,” Bruce Cockburn
“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” Sixpence None the Richer

(I couldn’t find a video for the Kinks, but instead stumbled across this bizarre but fun nsfw video on Father Xmas.)

Sentimentality, James Joyce said, is “unearned emotion.” That’s an apt description of a lot of the sappy treacle that fills the airwaves at Christmastime. But on the other hand, it’s cold and dark and the end of a long year, so maybe we have earned a bit of emotion and sentiment. One of my favorite things about the holiday season is seeing even the congenitally un-sentimental let their guard down, whether it’s Letterman looking almost human as he shakes Darlene Love’s hand or Sonny Corleone making Santa’s sleigh fly at the end of Elf.

So, OK, Christmas music guilty pleasures. What’s your favorite sappy, sugary, sentimental holiday treat?