A few friends who know I am a fierce lover of Christmas music have asked for playlists. I have seven themed playlists that I rotate according to my needs and you are very welcome to enjoy them too, if you want!
You should know before we dive in, however, that the longer I work with music (and listen to, create, interpret, perform, decipher, study, discuss and discover music), the less interested I am in judging it. And Christmas music is a wonderful place to love music with reckless abandon; to throw oneself into the warmest chords, the most clichéd themed and phrases, the most expressive voices, the most energetic bells and brass and the most cheerful swing. And it makes me happy. It's not superficial, either; it's actual, true joy. (I started listening to Christmas music in November this year, earlier than I normally would, and the strange thing is ... it worked. To me, there's joy in Christmas music that I've stored there during previous Christmases; it lies there slumbering, waiting, ready for me to take it out when I need it. If that's not magic I don't know what is.)
My playlists have Hanson and Polyphony and Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson and Otis Redding and Magnetic Fields and Rachmaninov and Bing Crosby and Keb' Mo' and Ingrid Michaelson and Sufjan Stevens and Justin Bieber and Sofia Karlsson and Dianne Reeves and Elvis Presley and Pentatonix and Peter Jöback and the Real Group and Sibelius and Praetorius and Dinah Washington and much more, and I love it all. I hope you will too.
Festligt julmys is my allround Christmas list. Cozy music for having guests over, or baking gingerbread or decorating the tree or just puttering around at home.
Peppig jul is like festligt julmys but faster. :) Energetic stuff for cleaning and crazy dancing and power walks, and a million versions of Jingle Bells and Sleigh Ride, because apparently people like to play them fast!
Stilla julnatt is probably the type of Christmas music I'd miss the most if I couldn't have any Christmas music at all. This is the playlist for late at night, when you're up reading and eating chocolate by the Christmas tree when everyone else has gone to bed. For late slow conversations with loved ones, for thinking about people you used to know and suddenly missing them intensely and hoping that they are the happiest they have ever been right now, for knowing in your core that everything will be okay in the end.
Adventslistan is usually the start of my Christmas music season; I listen to advent music before I'm ready to pull out all the Christmas stops. Advent music has its own range from soft and quiet to full on brass and choir party. I like it. Also, every other song on this list is Bereden väg. Because it's the best.
Kristins bästa julkör is, I think, my oldest list and has remained mostly unchanged since 2013. As you know, choral singing is close to my heart whether Christmas themed or not, and there's such variation to find within this genre: there's 400 years of Christmas music in here, all of it performed by the wonder that is the human voice. What's not to like?
Julswing is everything that makes me want to swing dance (although a few of the songs are more for boogie woogie than lindy or bal). It's a short list of songs I've gathered when I've been asked to DJ for a Christmas swing social here or there, and I quite like to be able to put on just Christmas music that swings at home, even when I'm not dancing.
Julblues is like julswing but blues. :)
Let me know if you have recommendations for any or all of these lists! I'm always up for finding new favourites.
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