Check out these Christmas photo essays from TIME.

Crazy Christmas Traditions – Photo Essays – TIME.

It Happened on Christmas Day – Photo Essays – TIME.

Ah Christmas music, some love it and would listen to it all year long, some can’t stand it, some are indifferent.

I like Christmas music but only around Christmas time. When the radio stations and stores start playing it before Thanksgiving I find it a bit annoying.

That being said, I do have 16.7 hours of Christmas music in my iTunes library and wanted to share just a few of my favorites with you. (please note there is audio embedded in this post, if you are reading this in a RSS reader you may need to click over).

1.

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Sufjan Stevens – The Friendly Beasts : This song is just cute and sweet and I love it. Johnny Cash’s version (titled “The Gifts They Gave”) is also worth a listen.

2.
I don’t think I ever watched a full episode of The O.C. but I know it had some good music and the Christmas album is great with tracks such as:

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Ravonettes – The Christmas Song and

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3.
This album has its good and bad but it’s the best of the “Happy Christmas” series if only for this track alone.

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Copeland – Do You Hear What I Hear?

4.
While I like Conor Oberst, there are only two Bright Eyes albums I can tolerate, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and “A Christmas Album.”

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Bright Eyes – Little Drummer Boy

5.
Christmas classics to most people bring up thoughts of Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, but for me it’s Dolly. This is the Christmas music I grew up with.

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Dolly Parton – Hard Candy Christmas

6.

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John Lennon – Happy Xmas (war is over) I don’t know what it is about this song, but I love it.

7.
I just realized there are several volumes of Christmas with the Rat Pack, the one I have is mostly Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. I just got it last year, but it’s already a staple.

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Christmas with the Rat Pack – A Marshmallow World

Bonus:

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What are some of your favorite Christmas songs? Or does Christmas music make your ears bleed? Let me know in the comments.

For a full list of the Christmas music in my iTunes library read on [...]

Check out Asthmatic Kitty’s Christmas page.

It has Christmas goodies from Sufjan and others including an e-card, games, ornaments to color, videos, and 8-bit (Nintendoesque) Sufjan Christmas ring tones.

via Stereogum.

Very creative, I love it.

Ah, it’s cute. I love octopi!