Yuletide Carols These are my favourite CDs for the holiday season.

Loreena McKennitt - To Drive the Cold Winter Away

I am a huge Loreena McKennitt fan, so of course I have put this at the top of my list. If you've never heard her music, I also strongly recommend what I consider to be her two best albums: The Mask and the Mirror, and The Book of Secrets.

Anonymous 4 - Wolcum Yule

Celtic and British Songs and Carols. A nice gift for any fan of Medieval/Renaissance/Early Music.

The Cambridge Singers Christmas Album

Excellent. Another good gift for that Early Music fan. I highly recommend it, even if like me you are not a Christian - unless of course you hate anything that has to do with Christ.

Hélène Dallaire - Noël Renaissance

This charming collection of Christmas carols, some of which you will find familiar, others probably not, is entirely in French, except for one fairly decent rendering of "Greensleeves" which is sung in English.

Sunita and Ensemble - Boughs of Holly

This CD features instrumental versions of many familiar carols as well as a few lesser-known ones. I don't usually like instrumental folk music collections because they usually sound like elevator music. This is an exception. It's almost like having a group of minstrels playing in your living room. Very evocative of an old-fashioned Christmas... you know, the kind Shakespeare might have known.

Shira Kammen - The Castle of the Holly King

I bought this CD used for $5 at Housing Works Book Cafe in Manhattan. It purports to contain "Secular Songs for the Yuletide" but there are a few references to Jesus in a couple of the songs. I didn't like most of the songs on this CD, because they sounded too much like this cheap-ass CD of Irish drinking songs I bought once. But it was worth the five bucks for the following songs: "The Holly Bears a Berry" (in Cornish!) "Gower Wassail," "Nou is Yole Comen" and "Bring Us in Good Ale."

Was hail/waes hael/ves heill... and (shudder) Cuio mae!  ¶ 3:53 PM