My holiday

For a Jewish gal, I really like holiday music. I think it comes from singing in choruses for years and years. I know the words to many carols. Chanukah songs are trickier. One day I'd like to write a classic Chanukah song, one that maybe even Merv Griffin could sing (see below) that isn't in a minor key, as they tend to unerringly be. My holiday music collection isn't vast, but among my favorites are an old cassette with the Staple Singers and some other folks on it called Gospel Christmas Card (there's now a nice Staples holiday CD with some of the same songs); another weird cassette of Canadian 90s folk-holiday stuff called Stuck on a Cold Steel Pole; and lovely Emmylou Harris and Trisha Yearwood CDs. I also got a swingin' big-band Lee Ann Womack holiday album this year, but I have to say I'm especially digging her non-holiday release Call Me Crazy, obsessed as I am with a mesmerizing song on it called "The Bees." (It's got Keith Urban singing harmony, and it's inspired by the novel The Secret Life of
Bees, and written by Natalie Hemby and Daniel Tashian.)

But so far my fave holiday CD is a couple years old and is by Mindy Smith, a Nashville singer-songwriter. She's only put out two albums and then decided to make a holiday record...what hubris, you might say! But I'm glad she did. It's called My Holiday, and has a nice combo of classics and songs she wrote. Mindy is pretty Christian, but this never comes through in a way that I find offensive as a non-Christian. It's not that some of her lyrics aren't overtly religious; it's just that the melodies are so gentle and the performaces so sweet, earnest and totally contemporary. My favorite track is a tune she borrowed from Chely Wright called "(It Really Is) A Wonderful Life," a slightly jazzy little (non-religious) number referencing a couple classic movies, about being in love and grateful on the holidays...thanks to "our own little miracle on our own little street," "it really is a wonderful life." It hits just the right low-key holiday note, which is the note I feel like hitting this year.

Oh, the Merv thing. My husband has a way of determining if a song is at all timeless (and I don't necessarily mean, good, just timeless). It is, if you can imagine Merv Griffin singing it.

So, here's Mindy chatting briefly and singing the title track from My Holiday. Have a happy.