It’s the day after Christmas and the stores are furiously ripping down the last vestiges of anything to do with Christmas – hey, Valentine’s Day is less than two months away and you gotta keep that marketing pipeline going! – but let’s allow another day for Christmas, shall we?

Enya doing Christmas carols. Some folks think every Enya song sounds the same – and maybe they do – but I find her music both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sad at the same time. Even her more whimsical offerings seem to come with them a tinge of sadness and longing. Wanna make The Great White Shank turn into a puddle of goo? Play him some Enya.

The Beach Boys’ Alan Jardine plays two classic Beach Boys Christmas songs. Just watching him play those chords on “Christmas Day” makes my fingers hurt.

A Christmas feel-good story.

Somehow I can’t imagine Michelle Obama doing this.

My favorite Frank Sinatra Christmas song.

Bert Kaempfert’s “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” with its delightfully-clunky plucked bass line remains a favorite to this former bassist.

…as is this lovely rendition of “Wexford Carol” by Alison Krauss. ‘Course, she could sing the local phone book and it would sound positively angelic.

…and speaking of angelic, Tammy Wynette’s “Joy To The World” is a keeper. I truly miss her voice. She was the best, like Elvis she could sing anything. Don’t believe me? Check this out.

And you can’t have Christmas without Elvis, can you?

…and no Great White Shank Christmas would be complete without Herb & the Tijuana Brass doing “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” and “Jingle Bell Rock”.

Today I’m back into the work jungle for what looks to be another string of very long days so the blog might go black for a few days. God willing, I’ll be back before New Years’.