Seasonal Rock

Now that December has begun, I feel it's legitimate to talk about the upcoming "holiday season" (one of the silliest and most transparent euphemisms of our day, IMHO, but hey, you can't fight city hall). I'm well aware that these days, the "holiday season" starts at least two weeks before Thanksgiving, but I'm old fashioned about this kind of stuff. Just as, lehavdil, I utterly refuse to acknowledge any Passover food displays on supermarket shelves until after Purim, I held back this post until we were at least in the right month.

But I digress - what I really wanted to do in this post was not preach, but confess. Specifically, though my Jewish religious affiliation is comfortably secure, I do really enjoy, and look forward to, some of the "holiday" music that I get to hear only at this time of year. There are at least a few that are great rock songs in their own right, and just happen to have a Christmassy theme. The examples that come to mind:

• Tom Petty, "Christmas All Over Again"; great tune and beat, fun and upbeat song
  
• ELP, "I Believe in Father Christmas"; hauntingly beautiful and sad ballad
  
• The Kinks, "Father Christmas"; biting, clever, funny, and really rocks!
• Bruce Springsteen (live), "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"; perfect example of how a live version can sometimes create a totally new song. Bruce made this oldie his own, and the fun that he and his entire band (especially Clarence!) had with it really shows
• The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"; wonderfully genuine and sweet story; the only Christmas song I can think of that actually brings tears to the eyes of this frum yid

There are probably a couple more that I enjoy, but these five are at the top. Any of my fellow J-bloggers feel like fessing up to a similar list?