White (Collar) Christmas: Music, Advent, Movie
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Christmas is upon us. Here are Christmas-music lists, Advent musings, and a Cary Grant movie.
Music
You doubtless have your Yuletide favorites obtained from streaming services, but here are five playlists I created on Spotify that may help. (You can follow me on Spotify at jsharman3).
Christmas
As broad a collection of genres and styles, time periods and release dates, traditions and oddities as possible. Playing time 16.5 hours (308 songs).
Christmas Classical
Classical music for Advent and Christmas. Playing time 20.5 hours (342 songs).
Christmas Motown and Soul
Christmas groove. Playing time about 5.5 hours (100 songs).
Christmas Jazz
Christmas jazz. Old, new. Cool, Swing. Big band, lounge. Playing time just over 18 hours (301 songs).
Christmas Neo-Classical
Christmas spa music. Playing time just over 13 hours (231 songs).
Christmas Blues
Blue Yule. Playing time almost 7 hours (89 songs).
Commit to Fail This Advent Season
If one follows this sort of thing, this week is the fourth week of Advent, the four-week liturgical season that precedes Christmas. Here is a 22 minute talk I gave on our need to “Commit to Fail This Advent Season.”
Movies
We are awash in Christmas movies, but one of the best—along with Holiday Inn [White Christmas], It’s A Wonderful Life, and the George C. Scott rendition of A Christmas Carol—is The Bishop’s Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and a sharp-dressed David Niven, a film sometimes overlooked: