White (Collar) Christmas: Music, Advent, Movie

We are in the season of Advent, with Christmas soon 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

Every type of Christmas music. Playing time 15 hours, 336 songs.

Christmas Classical

Classical music for Advent and Christmas. Playing time 21 hours (362 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 20 hours (342 songs).

Christmas Neo-Classical

Christmas spa music. Playing time just over 13 hours (231 songs).

Christmas Blues

Blue Yule. Playing time 5 hours (89 songs).

Commit to Fail This Advent Season

If one follows this sort of thing, we are in Advent, the four-week liturgical season that precedes Christmas. If you happen to be in Birmingham on December 14, here is a pitch for my class:

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: