A Few of My Favorite Christmas Songs

1. “All Alone on Christmas” -- Darlene Love. An excerpt from the Home Alone Christmas album but a good one. Uplifting yet moody -- just like I tended to be in times past.

2. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” -- Mariah Carey. One wag on the Net described this as a modern-day version of a Phil Spector song and indeed, it is not hard to picture this song turning up on Phil Spector's Christmas album. Not so much a cover of the Vince Vance song of the same name as a variation on the same theme.

3. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” -- Vince Vance and the Valiants. No, I don't know why the lead singer of this group -- Lisa Layne -- is a female, much less why she isn't named Vince Vance. And it is hard to say which of this group's album covers is weirder: the one in which the whole group looks like a bunch of coneheads or the one in which the only person to be seen is a mysterious blonde who may or may not be Lisa Layne. However, the song itself is pretty sweet and it's always nice to see a reminder that not everyone sees Christmas as just an occasion for presents.