Christmas is my favorite holiday.  Its got joy, its got lights, its got music--what could be better!

This year I went a little fucking crazy deep into the Christmas music archives, adding as many Christmas songs and albums to my single streaming playlist as possible.  It now sits at an overwhelming amazing 1,594 songs for a total of 79 hours and 5 minutes!

There are so many songs I had never heard before adding them.  Many of my favorites from that bunch were written in the '60s, when Christmas music and lore were not so set in stone as we seem to think of them now.  (Even Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a modern invention, he of the Montgomery-Ward catalogue.  But I digress.)

Here is a couple of Top 10(ish) lists.  You may have heard of some of them, you may have heard of none of them (or maybe you know all of them??? if so, please share where, as I am constantly looking for more.)

Top 10 World-building songs:

1. Jingle-O The Brownie - Tennessee Ernie Ford
2. Uncle Mistletoe - The Three Suns
3. Poppy the Puppy - Gene Autry
4. The Three Little Dwarfs (Hard Rock, Coco, and Joe) - Gene Autry
5. Little Klinker - Tennessee Ernie Ford
6. Santa And The Purple People Eater - Sheb Wooley
7. Captain Santa Claus (And His Reindeer Space Patrol) - Bobby Helms
8. Freddie, The Little Fir Tree - Gene Autry
9. Socko, The Smallest Snowball - The Bell Sisters & Spike Jones & His City Slickers
10. Christy Christmas - Brenda Lee

Honorary mentions (eclectic collection):

1. Christmas Is A-Comin' - Bing Crosby
2. Santa Claus, That's Me! - Vernon Dalhart
3. Who's That Up On The Roof - The Caroleers
4. The Stingiest Man In Town - The Four Lads
5. The Christmas Blues - Julia Lee & Her Boyfriends
6. Christmas Rappin' - Kurtis Blow
7. The Fairy On The Christmas Tree - BBC Orchestra & The Three Sisters
8. The Bell That Couldn't Jingle - Burt Bacharach
9. Snoopy's Christmas - The Royal Guardsmen
10. The Night Before Christmas (In Texas That Is) - Montana Slim

Shout-out to the spoken word Christmas recordings:

1. Christmas Dragnet (Yulenet) Parts 1 & 2 - Stan Freberg
2. I Was A Teenage Reindeer - Jim Backus & Daws Butler
3. I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas - Yogi Yorgesson
4. Elvis For Xmas - Mad Milo
5. Chinchy Old Scrooge - Phil Moore
6. Blink Before Christmas - Phil Moore
7. Santa Claus Proves There Is A Santa - Ernest Hare
8. Santa Claus Hides In Your Phonograph - Ernest Hare

I always feel like wishlists are so hard for me to create.  They feel a lot like asking for help, another thing I have a terribly hard time doing.  Yes, this is something I'm currently working on in therapy.  How is that going?  Haha, don't worry about it.

But, in the interest of Putting Myself Out There, here is a wishlist:

1. Top surgery
   1. Oh, we're starting in Hard Mode I see... fun!
2. A couple new multi-color packs of Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens
3. A good region-free DVD player
4. Any kind of recommendations on how to learn written shorthand
5. Advice on how to do candle magic when you can't burn candles
   1. Or, alternatively I guess, what to substitute for candle magic when you can't burn candles
6. Recommendations for language learning apps that aren't Duolingo (or Rosetta Stone, only because I already have that)
7. A year of Boot.dev
8. Gift card(s) to Bookshop.org, Google Play Store, or BetterWorldBooks (the last of which might make me finally move my unending wishlist from Thriftbooks to BWB)
9. Best places to learn Linux and such
10. Obligatory newly-curated Amazon wishlist

please do not judge the fact that it took me 3 entire hours to post this single thing akdhgaolksdjflkhajd I sleep now before I break out in hives for Wanting Things and Letting People Know I Want Things