You will LISTEN to "A Christmas Gift For You," AND YOU WILL LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

It's a beautiful thing when two people come together and fall in love. They dote on each other, they hold hands, they take romantic strolls along a moonlit path kissing and caressing and enjoying time together.

The first holiday season together rolls around and they delight in trying to come up with the perfect gift to surprise one another. Pearls? Diamonds? A fishing rod? The lights, the sparkles, the sounds of the season are all-encompassing.

Until the holiday CDs (and dare I say it -- cassettes) rear their ugly heads.

Well, I don’t care if YOU want to hear Neil Diamond's "O, Come All Ye Faithful," I'm not listening to that crap. It's Trans-Siberian Orchestra all the way. And then it starts. You realize the fa-la-la-la-loser you're dating likes crappy Christmas music.

For music that we generally hear only maybe two months out of the year, people sure can be defensive and particular about their Christmas tunage. With radio stations starting to play it non-FRIGGING-stop (and that's coming from someone who aspires to some day work in a mall and wear an elf costume) the day after Halloween, you wants what you wants.

I will say that even if it's not a particular choir or chorus singing, I am a fan of almost all the classic Christmas songs when sung like they would be in church (said by someone who doesn't go to church and hasn't since my wedding with the exception of other people's weddings and funerals). I don't really know why that is, but it's just traditional. When you start bringing bad musical artists to good songs… you're breaking my heart, Arista Records.

(Also, since having my son, it's a little secret dream of mine that he'll someday have the singing voice of a prepubescent angel and rocket to stardom after a stint in the Vienna Boys Choir. At least that was my dream until I realized the Vienna Boys Choir members are made to wear these outfits.



I love you, baby Johnny, but I cannot do this to you. They are wonderful singers, but I am not stuffing you into a sailor suit. Much less at eight years old. You're free to audition for Americal Idol though.)

Sure, I may love when Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters sing "Jingle Bells," but I *loathe to the nth degree* Barbara Streisand's version. The Ronettes singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is a classic to me, but listening to The Cheetah Girls' version of it hurts my feelings and makes the baby Jesus cry.

For example, "Sleigh Ride." To me, there is no better version than the instrumental by the Boston Pops. The words are lovely and all, but I like the rawness of the Pops' version. It makes me think of wrapping presents with my mom and sister listening to music. It makes me think of the big Christmas Eve party at my parents' house. At first I thought it was just me -- every time I hear THAT version, and only that version -- on the radio in December, I turn it up. Then I mentioned it to my sister who said she too had the same attachment to that song. SEE, IT'S NOT JUST ME!

"The Christmas Song," sung by Nat King Cole, which everyone VERY WRONGLY AND STOP DOING IT calls "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" (haven't had my valium yet today) is one of my absolute favorite songs of all time, and probably my absolute favorite Christmas song. It makes me think of (Chrissy, back me up on this) sitting in my parents' living room on a night in December, with all the lights but the Christmas tree and the candles in the windows off. Even just sitting on the floor, playing with the little angel candle chime my mom had (has? Mom, if you still have this, and don't use it I WANT IT), and being so excited. We didn't care about the presents, really. In fact, it's always been more fun for us to give the presents than get them (and we walked 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow).There was some kind of special glitter to the room. Some kind of, "so THIS is why it's special" feeling to it. The kind of feeling that makes me want to knock someone's teeth out when they say they don't like that song.

People can be very territorial about their Christmas music, and I think it comes from not wanting to stray from what we listened to as kids. Notice I didn't say "liked as kids." That's because there are plenty of songs that signal the start of the season to me that I have hated since I was a kid, but it still wouldn't be Christmas without them. A prime example -- "Mary's Boy Child" by The Jingle Belles. This song has rocked me to my core since I was a kid, and not in a good way. It hits me the same way a bout of pregnancy nausea used to hit me. Quick, hard, fast, and ugh -- sure, in a few minutes I'll feel better, but in the interim, it's hell on earth. When sung by, say, ONE person, minus the steel drums in the background and with a little less of a calypso tempo, it's a beautiful song (listen to the Harry Belafonte or Nat King Cole versions). But when you play it as if it's Christmas in Jamaica, I get the strong urge to tear out my radio receiver and chuck it at a group of of unsuspecting street musicians. That said, the ridiculous sound of it has been making me laugh since I was little, and if I didn't hear it, I'd wonder what happened to it.

The other song that tips the craptastic scales for me is "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney. It's too synthesizery (word?). It's too new age. To put it bluntly, it sucks. It sucks dirty diapers. It sucks meconium diapers.

When we were kids, we liked what our parents played, which was what they liked -- most memorably Phil Spector's "A Christmas Gift For You" and "When My Heart Finds Christmas" by Harry Connick Jr. Both awesome albums that I have owned since I was a teenager. To us, they WERE Christmas.

So imagine the shock I face when I'm hit with a naysayer. Um, what do you mean you don’t think Ave Maria is a Christmas song? IT IS ON HARRY CONNICK JR.'S CHRISTMAS ALBUM. What do you mean you don't know "Marshmallow World?" What is wrong with you, man? And of course, you then feel the need to play whatever song it is they don't know or like, to try to convince them. "See? It's such a great song." You then get legitimately pissed when they respond with, "I don't know, I just don't like it." Well, then you're an idiot if you don't like that. That is the best Christmas music there ever was. Why, what, you'd rather listen to Jessica Simpson murder Jingle Bell Rock? Whatever.

We get so defensive, I think, because we know what Christmas felt like when we were kids. And we just want someone else to feel the same -- be it a friend or a child, or whoever. It's fun as an adult, but I think far more fun when you have kids to introduce to it (read: me). I just want to someday have him say he can't wait for Christmas. I have a mind to mold here.

So it made me start to wonder… if the music that I like and my husband likes (Mitch Miller and The Gang from the '50s -- he told me this tonight, and that it was what they listened to as kids, and I took a listen expecting an album called "Christmas Sing-a-long with Mitch and the Gang" to be completely awful. It's actually not. It's very traditionally sung music, and I can dig that) came out in the '50's and '60's -- when our parents were kids -- does that mean our son is going to someday be telling his kids how much he loves music that at that time will be (gulp) 75 years old? Holy crap.

I don't know if he'll like what we do, but I can promise you this, when he is old enough to appreciate Christmas music, there will be no Jessica Simpson in my house. There will be no fur bikini-clad girls on Christmas album covers. There will be no steel drums. We will be Christmas purists, dammit.

So, in the spirit of the season, everyone has a favorite Christmas song -- what's yours? And better yet -- which one(s) take you thisclose to hoping a seizure will thrust your head through your car window?