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 [...]

(This post is best viewed here)

Those who follow me on twitter already knew, this week Multimedia Monday had to be Multimedia Tuesday. I’m having some medical issues and found out yesterday I’m going to have to have more tests done, so I wasn’t really in the mood for posting. If I hadn’t already started this post before this week I probably wouldn’t make it at all because it’s really hard to think about anything right now. I have reviews I need to write and emails I need to answer, but those things probably won’t get done until this weekend at the earliest. And if you’re the sender of one of the emails I need to answer or if I haven’t responded to your comment on this site, I’m really sorry!

Anyway, on with the show!

Sorry if you expected this week’s multimedia post to be about the Olympics, it is not. I am not afraid to be the first one to admit that as a kid the Olympics were my very least favorite thing on television. They took over everything, all of the good shows were put off and postponed, leaving me with nothing to watch while I ate my happy meal on a bed sheet thrown on the floor no more than two feet from the TV.

So while I did enjoy this photo essay of the opening ceremonies on TIME.com, I’m not going to let the Olympics take over another multimedia opportunity.

This week I’ve made you (yes, you!) a mix. This is something I hope to do again in the future, so please let me know what you think. All of the tracks in this mix are songs from albums released in 2008 that I’ve been enjoying lately, for a full and regularly updated list of my favorite albums of 2008 check out my list on Lists of Bests. If there’s an album you think should be represented here but is not, let me know what I’m missing in the comments. [...]