I love this time of year for one specific reason. My hour and half drive to work gets much more bearable this time of year. Shortly before Thanksgiving I indulge in my guilty pleasure...Sufjan Stevens: Songs for Christmas! I will be indulging until the end of January (much to Brent's dismay). In addition to the album being on constant loop in my car, I will be proudly blaring it while I prepare the house for Christmas, during Christmas dinner and while I remove the Christmas decorations...and no body can stop me.
If you do not know the great works of Sufjan Stevens, you must go right now and buy it, any album will do, you'll love them all. I'll wait here.
Ok, did you pick up your album? Good...now go play it as loud as you can and wait for the euphoric feelings to wash over you like a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold wintry day.
See, I told you it was good.
Sufjan started this album in 2001 with a group of friends and was released in 2006, compiling the old classics like Silent Night, We Three Kings, Jingle Bells, and O' Holy Night with some of his own Christmas flavor like Christmas in July, We’re Goin’ To the Country!, That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!, and Put the Lights on the Tree.
Asthmatic Kitty Records that produced this album says this about the creative process...
The recording process took place every December, for one week, usually at home, provoking collaborations with friends, roommates, and musical peers. Armed with a Reader’s Digest Christmas Songbook (and a mug of hot cider) Sufjan & friends concocted a musical fruit cake year after year, implementing every musical instrument they could find lying around the house: banjo, oboe, Casiotone, wood flute, a buzzy guitar, hand claps, sleigh bells, Hammond organ, and some tree tinsel.
I want to leave you with of one of my favorites, Sister Winter which is a Sufjan original. I don't know how to embed a song, so I found it on YouTube where someone had put the song to a still picture of Sufjan Stevens. I hope you enjoy this song as much as I do.
