swingin' christmas tunes!
everybody has their own flavor of christmas memories... songs and things that define what traditional christmas has to be. mine ideal christmas was formed when i was before age 5 and going to my grandparents' house for the day. it was probably the only day of the year when the stereo would run all day and loud enough that you could hear it from one end of the house to the other.
when i was about 4, my grandparents had one of those beautiful old danish modern stereo cabinets filled with fancy knobs and a turn table. their sizable record collection was housed inside two very 60s modern side tables with orange formica tops, specially made my my grandfather (clever!). because the records were always in an enclosed space, opening those end tables always had the pleasant and alluring smell of fresh vinyl. this smell is strongly associated with christmas as a result. pop, my grandfather, had a preference for wildly upbeat christmas music and so there were many turns of peggy lee and the mexicali brass on the turntable all day long.
although they had a green plastic christmas tree, i began associating appropriate christmas decor with white flocked and aluminum faux trees - no doubt in thanks to images on the record jackets... those jackets always showed buxom, well-dressed modern vixens wearing red lipstick and lacquered hairdos in front of some jazzy purposely artificial tree.
also helping cement my idea of christmas being locked into a 50's - 60's modern wonderland was the fact that my grandparents must have bought an incredible amount of overstock wrapping paper, tags, and bows in the early 60s... because my gifts always came in the most amazing 50's papers with cute novelty bows that were colored like ribbon candy and tagged with electric flocked christmas tags... one day i will scan some of the surviving tags that i found tucked away unused one year.
anyway, here is my ideal easy-on-the-nerves christmas music mix... to which you could dance swing, mambo, or any number of hip dances that i don't know how to do. :) i guess i have a real thing for lounge singers and brass when it comes to christmas tunes. i also noticed after listening to this compilation a couple of times through that it's incredibly commercial friendly - i guess i'm just a born advertiser!
happy cocktail hour holidays, everybody!
when i was about 4, my grandparents had one of those beautiful old danish modern stereo cabinets filled with fancy knobs and a turn table. their sizable record collection was housed inside two very 60s modern side tables with orange formica tops, specially made my my grandfather (clever!). because the records were always in an enclosed space, opening those end tables always had the pleasant and alluring smell of fresh vinyl. this smell is strongly associated with christmas as a result. pop, my grandfather, had a preference for wildly upbeat christmas music and so there were many turns of peggy lee and the mexicali brass on the turntable all day long.
although they had a green plastic christmas tree, i began associating appropriate christmas decor with white flocked and aluminum faux trees - no doubt in thanks to images on the record jackets... those jackets always showed buxom, well-dressed modern vixens wearing red lipstick and lacquered hairdos in front of some jazzy purposely artificial tree.
also helping cement my idea of christmas being locked into a 50's - 60's modern wonderland was the fact that my grandparents must have bought an incredible amount of overstock wrapping paper, tags, and bows in the early 60s... because my gifts always came in the most amazing 50's papers with cute novelty bows that were colored like ribbon candy and tagged with electric flocked christmas tags... one day i will scan some of the surviving tags that i found tucked away unused one year.
anyway, here is my ideal easy-on-the-nerves christmas music mix... to which you could dance swing, mambo, or any number of hip dances that i don't know how to do. :) i guess i have a real thing for lounge singers and brass when it comes to christmas tunes. i also noticed after listening to this compilation a couple of times through that it's incredibly commercial friendly - i guess i'm just a born advertiser!
happy cocktail hour holidays, everybody!