Sorry, Bing, but you ain't the only Christmas crooner on the ol hi-fi this year.  Sharing the limelight are James Brown and the many artists of the Philles label as well as the Fantasy Mirrors/Cassette.  Therefore, the top three Christmas albums this season are

1.  Phil Spector and Co:  A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector.  Because of the Kennedy assassination not a hit at its initial release but a chalise of treasure every returning Holiday season.  Ronnie Bennett, soon to be Spector, turns her sex appeal toward a ballad about seeing her mommy in some kind of adulturous affair with her Santa 'angel-of-the-night' Claus.   Darlene Love's singing is so passionate it gives me chills and makes me wanna jump in the speakers, come home for Christmas, and save her from her torturous holiday sorrow.

2.  James Brown's Funky Christmas.
This one has excellent titles ("Go Power at Christmas Time" and "Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto") as well as excellent funk.  But, rather than funk reworkings of traditional songs like Spector's wall-of-sound Christmas tribute, Funky Christmas features nearly all original material.  These have heart and soul as well as funk, but admittedly, it's hard not to laugh while Brown wails and make goofy ad-libs.  Maybe it's a Plan 9 kind of laugh, but a joyful, holiday-spirited laugh nonetheless.  Anyway, this is another heartfelt, passionate Christmas album I'm really diggin' this time a year thanks to my friend Tom. 

3.  Cassette/Fantasy Mirrors - Christmas '05
Just so I'm outfront about this, Fantasy Mirrors is fronted by my brother Nathanael.  A couple years ago Cassette put together an EP of holiday fav's bringing to dance/synth-pop/Christianity what there has been a dearth of since Wham's "Last Christmas."  If you can't get a hold of it and you're a personal friend, I've probably shared it with you already, but I'll do so if I haven't.

In a couple weeks when it's New Year's I'll have to make a whole new blog about Abba's seminal "Happy New Year," but until then, there's gotta be loads of Christmas albums out there I don't even know about.  What are you all listening to?  Tell me.