There's so much holiday music in the kids music genre that just listening to it all this year was a daunting task. I've got eight albums that grabbed my attention in one way or another; one of them is bound to please your family (unless you're looking for a solstice, Kwanzaa, or Festivus album).
Let's start out with my 3 favorite albums of this particular season...
The most ambitious kids music holiday album of the year comes courtesy of
The Hipwaders, whose
A Kindie Christmas isn't so much an album of Christmas music as much as it is a Christmas concept album, covering the emotions and anticipation of the season. It's a collection of all-original tunes, done in the Hipwaders power-pop/rock style. "It's Wintertime" is a great dance tune, and "Santa's Train" sounds like an outtake to a Johnny Cash Christmas album, but my favorite track here, maybe of the season, is "There's Too Much Good," a very affirming sentiment at this time of year.
To say that the collaboration of
Danny Adlerman,
Kevin Kameraad, and
Yosi finally bridges the divide between Christian and Jewish holiday traditions makes
...And a Happy New Year sound a lot duller than it really is. In reality, the three kids rockers mostly take turns in providing songs, alternately deeply sincere ("Starlight" and "Two Sets of Footprints") and goofy (the "12 Days of Christmas" reworking "A Pickle for my Christmas Tree" and a cover of Tom Lehrer's "I'm Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica"). Featuring the season's hardest-rocking tune, the trio's cover of "Frosty the Snowman," it's an interfaith collection worth exploring regardless of whether you light menorah or advent candles.
Robert Burke Warren, AKA
Uncle Rock, spent time in London's West End performing a Broadway show but also rocked in far earthier terms. On
Express Your Elf, Warren taps into both of those performing personalities. On the one hand, he offers a crooning take on "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and a peaceful "My Favorite Things" (a perfect holiday song, when you think about it). Those tracks share space with the rootsy
original long-lost nugget "Santa's Coming in a Whirlybird" and a cover of "Feliz Navidad" that neatly weaves "La Bamba" into the mix. It's a tough (and close) call, but it's my favorite kids music holiday disk of the year.
There are others for your listening pleasure. Read on for more...
I've been starting to listen to Ranky Tanky, the first and forthcoming family album from Connecticut's Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem, so I was glad to see that Bill had captured them (not literally, just on video) recording an in-studio performance for a future show. They're making their way out west this spring; I'm looking forward to hearing them do a few tracks off the album here in Arizona in May. But here they are doing their cover of the Meters' "They All Ask'd For You" and making the N'Awlins classic song very much their own... Dig the fiddle. I always dig the fiddle.
Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem - "They All Ask'd For You" (Live) [YouTube]
Ranky Tanky track listing after the jump...
In the midst of Hanukkah, and only a week or so before the solstice, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, it's prime time for holiday music. No sooner do I post about a 
A lot of the Christmas songs I've been posting or mentioning have tended toward the silly, goofy, and light.
This song is not any of those.
But I like it nonetheless. It's from the Irish band 
OK, you know those parenting magazines you skim through at the pediatricians' office (when all you you'd really like to read is a nice Entertainment Weekly or Economist?) that have pictures of cupcakes which make you want to scream "oooooh!"? This is like the kids music video equivalent. Don't click on the picture -- go 
