Merry Christmas

Most companies have shut down for a four (or five) day weekend in celebration of Christmas (unless you’re a Chrysler factory worker, in which case you get a much longer vacation).

Every year when trying to get into the Christmas spirit, I burn through my 26 hours of Christmas songs before I get an itch to hear something new. My best luck has been with Live365, the onetime market leader in Internet radio that I discovered back in 2002 when asked to give advice on their restructuring efforts. Live365 still has the widest range of niche content, so this sort of use is a perfect fit.

After poking around, I can strongly recommend “A Blue Light Christmas,” a Live365 channel live from Elko Nevada that has all the good songs. As the description says:

Now in it's [sic] ninth year of broadcasting classic Christmas music on the Internet, featuring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Burl Ives, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Nat Cole, Andy Williams, Gene Autry, and many more

The site doesn’t explain the name. Nine years ago, it would not have been a reference to the blue glow of today’s LED illuminated Christmas lights. The obvious reference is to the name formerly used for K-Mart in-store specials — perhaps due to the frequent Wal-Mart audio ads? Everything on Live365 is cheap (unless you’re a VIP member), so that’s not it. A commentary about class?

Anyway, it’s a great station with the right music. If for some reason I get bored with this after a few days, I can always go back to my hard disk and listen to Christmas music from the Beach Boys, the Boss, or Mannheim Steamroller.

As Charlie Brown and his friends say: “peace on earth, good will towards men!”