Wrapped in metal, wrapped in ivy

[sovay]

Driving around on errands, I seem to have discovered that my tolerance for Christmas music has zeroed out unless it falls into the class of traditional carols, i.e. can be used for wassailing, first appeared in Latin, was arranged once by Benjamin Britten. I relayed this sentiment to spatch and he promptly broke out SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." When we saw the news of the death of Dave Mallett, I played him my favorite version of the "Garden Song," from Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger's Precious Friend (1981). I remain entertained that the official website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had to put up a short post attesting to the historical reality of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Penalty for Keeping Christmas 1659. The catchiest music I have heard on the radio lately—WHRB, natch—is almost certainly Auntie Christ's "I Don't" (1997). I am all for amending our still-critical drought, but these 100% chances of rain could be snow any time now.

Comments

[luzula]

May I recommend this album which is Swedish Christmas music from the folk tradition? A lot of it is wassailing music that combines the story of St Stephen (Staffan in Swedish) with things like "if you don't give us liquor we'll set fire to your barn".

[sovay]

May I recommend this album which is Swedish Christmas music from the folk tradition? A lot of it is wassailing music that combines the story of St Stephen (Staffan in Swedish) with things like "if you don't give us liquor we'll set fire to your barn".

YouTube tells me the video is not available, which is probably some kind of region-lock, but Folk och Rackare were great! I will see if I can find their Christmas album.

[luzula]

Hmm, well, the Christmas album is called "Stjärnhästen", so try searching for that.