I wish you a Merry Christmas. And to make your Christmas even merrier, I’ve come up with links to some good, old fashioned, Christmassy Christmas carols guaranteed not to be the safe, watered-down, pop stuff you’ve been hearing at the mall since Thanksgiving.

Not everyone wants to hear the Christmas message as they shop for the holidays, and imo it’s a plus that shops and malls are sensitive to that fact. But I worry for the Christmas carol — it’s slowly disappearing from the scene.

The internet to the rescue. Thanks to YouTube, you can deck your halls with Christmas carols any time of day or night:

Christmas Carols — Some Oldies 

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Sings Christmas Carols. This one’s an oldie but goodie dating back to 1957. The track is a little scratchy, but it’s beautiful and it includes two of my favorites: “Away in a Manger,” and “Oh, Holy Night.” FYI — the Latter-Day Saints choir has since changed its name to The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

Here’s another oldie, from an era when a song was a song and didn’t need a lot of complicated arranging to find an audience. It’s the The Norman Luboff Choir, Christmas Carols, 1953. Go here for a solid line-up of the classics — “Silent Night,” “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” “Joy to the World,” “O, Come All Ye Faithful” and more. Almost as good as the 1957 Tabernacle Choir.

Christmas Carols — Some Newbies

“The Vienna Boys Choir Christmas Classics” mixes traditional carols with “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and other seasonal songs. Its production values and arrangements are slicker than those of the the Norman Luboff and Tabernacle choirs, but personally, I’d rather listen to the heartfelt voices coming to us from the Fifties.

Here’s the latest from Utah — the 2025 Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir* production with a sprinkling of familiar carols and lots of unfamiliar — to me — Christmas tunes. Toward the end, there’s a spoken seasonal play for those with the time to sit down and watch the goings-on. As I write this, I’m still busy wrapping Christmas present, so I’m not taking the time to watch the  play; you’re on your own. This choir has grown huge, the pageantry and production values more polished. But when my kids come to visit, I’m skipping this one and putting on the two 1950s oldies.

Do you have a favorite Christmas carol recording? If so, please share in the comments below — especially if you know of a 21st-century rendition of the old familiars.

More about music and musicians at “Widowed: John Donne, Meet Leonard Cohen.”

* 2025 update: The 2024 Tabernacle Christmas festival is currently unavailable. I’ve substituted the 2025 celebration.