Tidings of comfort and joy

Joy To The World

Joy to the world! The Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart
Prepare Him room
And Saints and angels sing
And Saints and angels sing
And Saints and Saints and angels sing

Joy to the world, the Saviour reigns
Let Saints their songs employ
While fields and floods
rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, Repeat, the sounding joy

Joy to the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders and wonders of His love

No more will sin and sorrow grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He'll come and make the blessings flow
Far as the curse was found,
Far as the curse was found,
Far as, far as the curse was found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And gives to nations proof
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love;
And wonders of His love;
And wonders, wonders of His love.

Rejoice! Rejoice in the Most High,
While Israel spreads abroad
Like stars that glitter in the sky,
And ever worship God,
And ever worship God,
And ever, and ever worship God.

--Isaac Watts(1674-1748)  

One of my favorite things about Christmastime is listening to Christmas music as much as possible (right up until my hubby starts to go nuts). I don't want to hear anything else in December.

For me, nothing beats a traditional carol. I love folk, pop, rock and classical Christmas music, as long as the lyrics are traditional. If the lyrics aren't about Christ's birth, it's holiday music, not Christmas music. (Although I'm also a sucker for anything sung by Nat King Cole -- who isn't?)

I've had Pandora Radio Christmas stations on pretty much every waking minute at home. I LOVE that website! I've been totally out of the music scene since college, so it's very nice to be able to put in one favorite song and have them create a station of new (and old) music I'll like. Especially since I don't own an iPod.

We've been listening to Pandora's Folk Holidays (Scott's favorite), Classical Christmas, Peaceful Holidays and a station I created based on "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," which is in my top three Christmas songs.

When our Internet connection has gone down lately (cable isn't supposed to do that!), I get out the Christmas Songbook CD collection I picked up last year at Costco. It has all the classics, sung by everyone from Bing Crosby to Billie Holiday, Perry Como to Gene Autry.

I found this great site for Christmas carol lyrics.

What's your favorite Christmas song or album?