Christmas Joy

Oh, how I am enjoying this holiday season!  It feels like the first time in years where I have approached Christmas with genuine, deeply felt peace and enjoyment. It has felt so good to reconnect with the Christmas spirit I've not felt in a long time. 

So I'm love, love, loving our choral singing and am somewhat sad that this weekend will mark the last of the season's concerts.  A new choral director, with totally new energy and happiness and a fun approach to choral singing, has cheered and enlivened and inspired all of us.  I have started to feel like his arrival at chorus this season was a spiritual gift to me -- and I know others in the chorus are feeling the same way.  It has been lovely, a truly joyous experience.

And at home, I've been decorating with new pleasure -- yep, Bing and Rosemary and Danny in their White Christmas finery are out again -- and making things with happy exploration, and just enjoying evenings in front of the fireplace with Christmas music playing softly in the background.  I"m not sure why, but this year I'm loving having instrumental holiday music going.  And I thought I'd share some of my favorites:

Vince Guaraldi's "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  Is there any better instrumental holiday music?

 
This cd, "Holiday," is hammer dulcimer music by Mark Davis.  I heard it playing in a store long, long ago and loved the gentle sound.  It's festive and peaceful at the same time.

 

 All of Windham Hill's Winter Solstice cds are wonderful. 

John Fahey's guitar music is folksy and wonderful, another long-time favorite.  I have happy memories of ice-skating to this music late at night on an outdoor pond.   

Dave Koz's smooth jazz Christmas cd is another wonderful instrumental cd.  Feels like great music for a holiday cocktail party.  

And a wonderful discovery: Pandora.com's instrumental holiday radio channel. All sorts of new discoveries, right on your computer.  

I hope you are feeling holiday bliss right now, too!