It's Beginning to Look (and Sound) a Lot Like Christmas

My name is Kristen and I have an addiction to all things Christmas.  Candles scented like pine (since we have the fake tree, they are necessary), sparkly ornaments, Santa hats...and the music.  Oh, how I love the music.

I am not allowed to listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving.  And I have to stop on New Year's Day.  But in between, it is playing on the iPod at every opportunity.

Every year we add a new CD to the collection.  This year, because my kids are big fans, we added The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection.  This wasn't as painful as you might think.  Taylor is OK.  A big upgrade from The Wiggles and Hi-5, which were staples of Christmases past.  Although I have to say I kind of loved Hi-5.  I am sad to see them moved out of the rotation.

Last year we added the Awesome 80s Christmas collection.  Sprout is a huge fan of Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses and both kids are perplexed by Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC.

Another big winner in our collection is the Brad Paisley Christmas album.  The kids love Penguin, James Penguin and request it regularly.  They also enjoy Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy...although somehow it doesn't seem to be triggering any suspicions.  Ah...the innocence of youth.

We also like Vanessa Williams - Star Bright, The Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked for the Holidays, Christmas with Johnny Mathis, and of course Christmas with The Chipmunks and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Gotta love Burl Ives.  Really, you do.

One of my favorites, which is not even remotely appropriate for kids is Merry Christmas from the Family.  Anything that starts with "Mom got drunk, and Dad got drunk..." is probably not quite right for the kiddies.  But it sure is funny.

So that covers the music side of things.

The day after Thanksgiving we also get out our big box of Christmas books.  We've been adding to the box every year.  The books don't even really fit in the box anymore.

We started with classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas (of course), and The Night Before Chrismas (this is an amazing pop-up version).  Then we expanded to include things like Olive The Other Reindeer, The Longest Christmas List Ever, How Santa Got His Job, and The Chicken Who Saved Christmas.

The kids love the interactive nature of Dear Santa Claus (I can't get the link to go to the hardcover edition - but that's the good one!) Each page has a letter to Santa in a real envelope and there is a little book of reindeer jokes, an advent calendar, etc.  We always have to negotiate who gets to read what and who gets to open the envelopes.  Good times.

The Jolly Christmas Postman is a similar deal with letters in envelopes.  So fun.

My favorite Christmas book has to be The Christmas Crocodile.  "The Christmas crocodile didn't mean to be bad.  Not Really."  The pictures are hysterically funny as the crocodile eats his way through Christmas.  Love it.

And then my most recent favorite is just called Santa Claus.  This is an amazing pop-up book that is presented like an encyclopedia of information about Santa.  It is really well done and even my older kids think it is completely factual.

So there you go - our Christmas media list.  Fun music and books that mark the season for us.  Hope something in there rings a bell (jingle jingle) for you and helps make your holidays as merry as they can be!

Do you have a book that you love that you can recommend?  We are always looking for good ones.  Any songs I need to add to my collection?  Let me know!