In the spirit of the 12 days of Christmas, here are my 12 favorite holiday songs for 2017.
Holiday music bolsters the spirit of the season and (mostly) holds a positive message. All of these songs can be found on YouTube – now that’s a gift! So consider these for your playlist and tell me your favorite songs and the best performance of them.
Top 12 Christmas Songs
Honestly it would have been pretty easy to make a list of 120 holiday songs that I like. You can find all of these songs on YouTube and no doubt many other places.
I included the title, artist, and version of the song I like:
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer performed by The Temptations. Funky.
- Drummer Boy performed by Tori Amos. Find the live version from 1995 wow.
- Children Go Where I Send Thee performed by Johnny Cash from Man in Black: Live in Denmark. It was 1971 and he’s got Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and the Carter Family with him.
- Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord performed by Boney M. in Dublin 1978.
- O Holy Night performed by Holly Near and Brian Green. Yes they agnosticized some of the lyrics to put a focus on peace, but what a beautiful arrangement and powerful vocals.
- Christmas In Hollis performed by Run-DMC.
- Louisiana Christmas Day performed by Aaron Neville.
- The Heat Miser Song performed by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. So tell me you don’t loudly sing along to this song.
- Jingle Bells – Lou Donaldson‘s version from Funky Christmas album.
- Angels We Have Heard On High performed by Christafari. Adding a bit of reggae to this classic.
- O Holy Night performed a capella by Nsync and a very young Justin Timberlake.
- Twelve Days of Christmas Hawaiian Style. Lots of great versions out there but watch this video that I stumbled across it starts with Run DMC but then see what happens at about the 47 second mark. I love this video.
Let me know whats on your holiday playlist. And pray for peace people everywhere.
Paul Sees the World 
I am a nut for Christmas, but find Christmas songs can get tacky fast. One of my favorites is Baby it’s cold outside by Tom Jones in duet with the singer of a since forgotten band Catatonia.
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Baby Its Cold Outside performed by Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews – excellent choice
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Cerys Matthews, how could I forget. I used to be quite the fan.
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Great choices!
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Thank you as always.
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You should have counted down from 12 to 1. But good content I like that one.
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Thank you. I’ve always had great taste in music. ; )
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Great list. Almost any version of O Holy Night, my favorite Christmas song of the faith. I love Go Tell it on the Mountain when it’s done with appropriate mountain instruments, a nod to my wife’s Appalachian heritage that I’ve grown to appreciate over the years. As a product of the Jersey Shore, it would be blasphemous to not include Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce. For some reason, I can never turn off Father Christmas by the Kinks, even though I know it’s about as edgy as a Christmas song can get. And I will admit I’m a sucker for any version of Last Christmas, which probably just made my wife cringe.
And yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movirr.
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Thanks Bill. Two songs that I did not put on my list but would have if I had 14 slots are: Do You See What I See (“where pray for peace people everywhere” came from) and Go a Tell It On The Mountain. I think my favorite version of Go Tell It On The Mountain is the studio version by Mahalia Jackson. I also love the way Dolly Parton sang it on her Christmas special. If you know a good Appalacian version please share it here.
Father Christmas just went on my playlist. How I forgot that one I don’t know.
Love Bruce and for anyone who never heard his version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town it is a classic. But commercial radio killed it for me – just way too overplayed.
Last Christmas….. I cringe right along with Julie.
Keep the songs coming my friend.
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Better Days by the Goo Goo Dolls. Love it and it isn’t ever played on the radio, so it doent get ruined. Also, Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey and Sammy the Christmas Snake.
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