When I was in college, I would break out my cassette (YES. CASSETTE. AMEN.) of Amy Grant’s A Christmas Album just as soon as Halloween was over. It was my Official Soundtrack during November and December road trips, and “Heirlooms” was always a sure-fire recipe for Tender Introspection since I was a terribly sophisticated nineteen year-old and all.
A nineteen year-old driving a Buick Regal that would sputter to a dead stop if the accelerator wasn’t pressed at all times, and yes, that includes at red lights and stop signs.
Anyway, my point is that Amy Grant’s first Christmas CD is the gold standard of Christmas albums for me. Other Christmas albums have joined her in my Christmas music hall-o-fame over the years – like Harry Connick Jr.’s and James Taylor’s, for instance – but I’m a pretty discriminating Christmas music listener. I want worship and reverence and fun wrapped up in one musical package, and I don’t want want a hint of corny in the mix. But other than that I’m not picky at ALL.
Ahem.
Last year, not too long after Melanie and I dragged Travis Cottrell into the vortex of our lives by obsessing over his wife’s jeans, he mentioned that he was about to start working on a Christmas album. He also mentioned that his producer was going to be Brown Bannister, a name I immediately knew because I’d seen it printed on the top, right-hand corner of every piece of Amy Grant sheet music I tried to play on the piano when I was a teenager. Since I knew that Brown Bannister produced Amy Grant’s Christmas albums, I figured that Travis’ Christmas CD was bound to turn out pretty well.
However, I had no idea that when I heard Travis’ Christmas CD for the first time, I would get all teary-eyed and fan my face and feel so unbelievably proud of our friend. The CD is absolutely, positively, completely, stunningly beautiful. Christmas music perfection. We’ve been listening to it in our house since Labor Day (YES. LABOR DAY.), and on at least four different occasions David and I have had in-depth conversations about how great it is. Every single day the five year-old gets in the car when I pick him up from kindergarten and asks if he can hear “Frosty.” Every single morning I have some church with my iPod when I listen to “In The First Light.” It is, plain and simple, a wonderful CD.
Ring the Bells will be released next Tuesday, October 7, and there’s no question that you’re going to want to add it to your Christmas music collection. But if you’d like to try to win one of ten autographed copies of the CD before it’s released, then here’s what you need to do:
1. Leave a comment telling me your favorite Christmas song.
2. Pause and think for a moment about how this is pretty much the EASIEST GIVEAWAY EVER.
I’ll close this giveaway next Monday and announce the winners next Tuesday.
And just FYI: Travis is so stinkin’ humble and self-deprecating about this whole Christmas CD thing that it’s sort of unbelievable. In fact, we have debated for weeks about how many comments this giveaway will generate, and I have contended that we’re gonna hit the hundreds. Travis’ official prediction is 46.
I have a feeling y’all are going to prove him oh-so-wrong.
Make it a merry one, internets.
This giveaway is now closed.
I can’t even begin to narrow down my favorited Christmas songs to just one! Let’s go with hymns, though, b/c there is something so nostalgic about singing the old hymns at Christmas time. I love “The First Noel.” Let me say, however, that I had no idea there were 6 verses. I mean, any respectable worship leader or pastor must learn in seminary that you never do all of the verses, right? Don’t they teach that there are times when only 1, 3, and 4 are the chosen ones?
Yep, you hit “the hundreds”!
“O Holy Night” is my pick, or “What Child is This?”
Merry Christmas! :)
I don’t know if it counts as a Christmas song – but Labor of Love from The Nativity Story soundtrack owns me!
I would so love to win one of these prized possessions – my friend Jon is one of the singers featured in your video of the recording of Jesus Saves.
My favorite is Little Drummer Boy
“Merry Christmas from the Family” by Montgomery Gentry always takes me back…
“Send somebody to the Stop ‘n Go
We need some celery and a can of fake snow
A bag of lemons and some Diet Sprite
A box of midol, some Salem Lights
Hallelujah everybody say cheese
Merry Christmas from the family”
If that don’t say Christmas, my friends…
;-)
Oh, it’s TOTALLY O, Holy Night. And has been since I was six–I had very refined tastes as a kid!
It’s so hard to pick just one – how about O Holy Night
I don’t think my earlier post went through. I couldn’t find it but might have missed it since there are so many. SO…sorry if this is a duplicate.
My favs are Amy Grant’s Emmanuel Medley and O Holy Night.
Thanks for the giveaway. If I don’t win, I will be waiting anxiously for the release! And now you can show Travis how wrong he was!
My favorite Christmas song: Mary, Did you Know? or Breath of Heaven. Or Silent Night. … this is hard.
I guess I have to pick just one, because you said to in the instructions. so I pick…
What Child is This?
Absolutely my favorite.
I really need new Christmas music. So I hope that the random generator picks me. Please.
My favorite is I Heard the Bells. I’m really excited for Travis’ album though!
Add me to the “O Holy Night” crew!
I love Christmas music. I don’t know how to describe other than to say, it makes my heart hurt–in a good way. These are just my top three or four:
Little Drummer Boy
I Pray on Christmas
Mary, Did You Know
Silent Night
It’s hard to stop the list!
If I’m being one hundred percent serious, it would have to be “Christmas in Dixie”. Did I just admit that?
Oh Holy Night…
And Mary’s Song from the other Amy Grant Christmas CD that’s also very good…
Oh I hope to win! Does it count that my birthday is ON Christmas? Shouldn’t that give me extra credit? PLEASE?!?!
Ok. Done groveling now. (ahem)
O Holy Night hands down. It looks as if it’s the favorite of most everyone here. Beautiful cover on the album by the way!
Ha, album! can ya tell I’m old?
“Oh Holy Night”, hands down. I’ve probably heard almost every version ever recorded!
I know this is corny, but “Silver Bells,” by the Judds.
At least I am being honest!
Without a doubt… “O Holy Night”!!
I have 2 Christmas favorites…Mary Did you Know? by Mark Lowery, and “O Holy Night.” Thanks for the great (and easy) giveaway!!
Oh, my, but I love all Christmas music! I’d have to say, though, that my favorite all time Christmas song is Oh Holy Night. It brings me to tears most every time I hear it.
My favorite is “My Christmas Card To You” by the Partridge Family. It’s a song I grew up singing at Christmas.
My favorite is O Come All Ye Faithful, and I have a decidedly soft spot for Steven Curtis Chapman’s version from this Christmas album. :)
“Tennessee Christmas” by Amy Grant is my favorite Christmas song. I’m not even from Tennessee, but it gives me chills every time I hear it!
Merry Christmas with Love
or
Christmas in Dixie
or
Oh Holy Night
or
oh nevermind… I can’t pick just one. I LOVE Christmas music!
Pick me, pick me!!!
Since I’m a TN gal, Tender TN Christmas by Amy Grant of course.
And O Come All Ye Faithful. I don’t know why we don’t sing that all year long!
WANT! My favorite Christmas song is “O Holy Night.”
Oh, I’m so excited. My favorite Christmas song is actually *not* about the Virgin birth or Jesus. It’s “Silver Bells”!! My husband and I spent a wonderful day in NYC in December 2002. It snowed and we window shopped. It was nothing short of magical. The verses of Silver Bells always makes me think of that perfect day.
:)
Joy to the World!
Oh, there are so many favorite Christmas songs. I’ve got Amy Grant on my brain, though, after reading your post and have to say that “Tender Tennessee Christmas” is one of my very favorites. It’s not Christmas for me until I hear that song.
Thanks for the giveaway.
My favorite Christmas Song is Mary Did You Know = because what mother knows how special her child will be to the whole world? Every mother knows her child will be special to her and her own family but only Mary has been the only mother who knew that her child was OUR Savior.
Pick me pick me!
My favorite Christmas song is “Welcome to This World” by Chris Rice. Makes my heart flutter. :)
And I had that Amy Grant tape & another that I listened to until she sounded like Barry White in slow-motion.
I hope I’m not too late! My favorite Christmas carol to belt out at the top of my lungs is Silent Night. And I mean belt out…with a voice that cracks windows and mirrors. So great!
My favorite Christmas song is “Breath of Heaven,” but “Oh Holy Night” is a close favorite. And, seeing as Amy Grant’s “Home for Christmas” has been my favorite Christmas cd of all time since I was 12, I canNOT wait to hear Travis’ new cd. Winning a copy for free would just be FABULOUS! I’ve never won anything, so maybe I’ll finally get lucky?
Pick just ONE?! How is that possible? ONE? Are you serious?
Okay, okay. If I absolutely, positively, without a doubt must pick just one, it would probably be “O Silent Night”.
O Holy Night – hands down.
So glad we could help prove Travis wrong on the comments!
My fav. Christmas song is “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” Can you believe Christmas is around the corner?
Abby
Definitely “O Holy Night”. Especially when Josh Groban sings it.
O Holy Night….
so beautiful, so serene… Travis will be making into my Christmas music playlist for sure! (you’ll be on iTunes, right?)
Do You Hear What I Hear? I love it because it’s different.
Our tastes in music are so similar it’s scary. Amy Grant, Harry Connick, Jr. and James Taylor are my favorite Christmas CDs also.
Oh yeah…Geaux Tigers….sorry we beat your bulldogs:) (Not really…..:))
Amy K.
Soooo easy – Amy Grant, A Christmas To Remember. I sooo wanted to be Amy Grant when I was teenager. I am no where close, but she is still the “star” I’ve ever wanted to meet.
A favorite Christmas song? It is so hard to choose, I love Christmas music. I would have to go with Christmastime by Michael W. Smith. That is the first one that popped into my head.
I like My Grown Up Christmas List by Amy Grant and I like to sing O Come All Ye Faithful.
My most favorite Christmas song is old school, called “How Far Is It To Bethlehem”. My mom and her used to sing it when I was little. I still make them give me a private concert. (:
Oh, and Travis, don’t be stupid. Everyone wants a piece of your singing goodness. Look at us go!
I love O’Holy Night. It sends shivers down my spine, but I also love Carol of the Bells. Actually I’d be hard pressed to name a Christmas song I don’t like. And any Amy Grant Christmas album is a good one. I’m sure Travis’s is good too. In fact, I’d like to win one. Pick me.
So it appears Travis’ number was wrong…
My favorite Christmas song is “O Come O Come, Emmanuel.”
There are so many! My secular favorite is Harry Connick Jr.’s “When My Heart Finds Christmas.” But my favorite religious Christmas song would be Mahalia Jackson singing “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.” That one brings tears to my eyes every time. That lady could sing. And the words to that song are so beautiful.
Hundreds!? You leave this thing open for a week and he thinks 46?! By next Monday there will be well over 1000 comments on this here post! Easy!
And my favorite was O Holy Night long before I heard Travis’s version which has given me another reason to love it all over again. And if I don’t win I’m still buying two copies, one for me and one for my worship team leader because we need some Travis arrangements in our Christmas reper-twah! :)
Mary did you know.
O Holy Night.
Go Tell it on the mountian. Have you heard James Taylor’s version. Oh my word.
BooMama, have you ever heard Kenny and Dolly’s Christmas Album? My sisters just love it. “I’ll be home with bells on” is particularly cute.
hard to say, but I suppose Carol of the Bells is one of my favorites.
Mary Did You Know?
I love Carol of the Bells, and O’ Holy Night but unlike Angela (Dwight’s Angela, not Travis’) The Little Drummer Boy is NOT my favorite song ever.
Oh how I would love to win this!! Music is what makes Christmas, Christmas. I start listening the day after Thanksgiving on our road trip home from the family cabin in the woods.
Favorite song? the Hallelujah Chorus!
There are too many awesome Christmas songs to choose from….but, being a Tennessee girl, I have to say that Amy Grant’s Tennessee Christmas has to be one of my all time favs! (I too had it on cassette tape!)
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.
Grandma got Run Over by a Reindeer is a close second however.
“O Holy Night” gets me every time.
The cover is Beautiful. Love it.
And I can tell you right now, that you should be Travis’ publicsist. Because even if I don’t win one, I know for certain I’ll be buying it as soon as it’s released. Which, by the way, is when?
I love almost all Christmas music. Faves would have to be “Oh Holy Night”, “Winter Wonderland” and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”.
I LOVE me some Christmas music! I like so many, but one of my favorites is “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day”.
“O Holy Night” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” in eight part harmony!!
My absolute favorite is “Mary Did ya Know?” I don’t remember who first sang it. But i love it!
I have two: My favorite Christmas song is “O Come All Ye Faithful” when sung by the entire congregation at Midnite Mass. My favorite Christmas song is “Silent Night” when rung on our handbell choir. It’s like a little lullaby for the baby Jesus.
“O Holy Night” as done by Newsong, “Merry Christmas” by Third Day, and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” as done by Amy Grant.
And pretty much any Christmas song ever done by a Christian artist.
If I win I’ll post a review!
Silent Night is my favorite! Thanks :-)
‘there’s a song in the air’
***
46. yeah, travis. that’s about right. 46.
*snort*
=]
O Holy Night has always been my favorite Christmas song. I love to sing it, but what I really love is to hear someone with a powerful voice sing it. If they hit that big note on “O night divine” and give me goosebumps, that version makes it into the Christmas music rotation. ;D
I had a 1980 Chrysler Diplomat that also would die if I didn’t have the gas pressed at all times. I got very good at popping the hood, removing the lid to the carborator (sp?) and spraying some stuff my dad gave me into it so it would stay running. So sad. Yet, only $300 spent on that car :)
My favorite Christmas song? ANY artist recording O Holy Night
The First Noel is my favorite. But thats not on this cd. So… on this one I like O Holy Night the best. You’re right. That was easy. :)
Of course it will be huge. We love Travis too! And I love some great Christmas music…I need another CD.
OK, favorite song: I do love O Holy Night too..looks like it is a fave for many.
Just to be a little different, I love
“Before the Marvel of this Night.”
It’s very poetic, and when sung by the Valparaiso University Concert Choir, it’s as if the angels are singing it.
Little Drummer Boy
Christmas music does my heart good! I could listen to it any day of the year (and sometimes do, thankya). Favorites? Probably Mary Did You Know?.
ok, I need to go find it and hear it right now.
Linus and Lucy, from the Charlie Brown Christmas CD. ;)
Travis’ CD sounds like something I need to get…or put on my wish list. My favorite Christmas song is Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant! It’s hard to pick one. There are so many wonderful Christmas songs…
No question…O Holy Night.
God Bless,
Kelly
O Holy Night…for SURE!
I walked through Hobby Lobby this weekend and saw rows and rows of Christmas goodness set up ALREADY…it was very hard not to browse–but my husband gave me the stink eye…and since we were on a family date that evening, I exercised restraint…
But my mom, sisters, and I have been known to call each other yearly to say “guess what I’m listening to right now?” and then you’ll hear the sound of Christmas through the phone WAY earlier than “normal” people…
That’s easy! O Holy Night. That moves me every Christmas when I hear it.
I had never heard “Some Children See Him…” until my husband brought out an Andy Williams Christmas album from his childhood. Love the message of that song. But “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is one of my favorite always gets to me. For most of our married lives, we have lived far away from family. Most years we did whatever it took to be there for the holidays(16 hours with 3 children + gifts in a Nissan Maxima) but some years we couldn’t (like the year child #3 decided to be born on Dec. 23). “I’ll be home for Christmas….if only in my dreams”
Silent Night, although to be honest, I have NEVER met a Christmas song I did not like.
It’s hard to pick a favorite Christmas song because I love them all!
I’ll say “O Holy Night”
My favorites are the classic standard hyms…songs like “O Holy Night”, “Joy to the World”, and such. I have lovely memories of my family church nativity production, which was a wonder to behold, and the choir singing “O Come Let Us Behold Him”. Brings me back to my childhood and the wonder of the Christmas story.
“Christmas in Dixie” is my favorite Christmas song. But I really just love all Christmas music and I like to listen to it year round. I sing Jingle Bells and Frosty to my daughter all the time.
I have the hardest time picking just one Christmas song. I suppose it would be “O Holy Night.” Can’t wait to hear Travis’ new CD.
“Sleigh Ride” by Amy Grant. :)
or SCC’s “Hark The Herald / Music of Christmas” Medley.
I love Christmas music!
Oh, Holy Night and Mary Did You Know
are probably my favorites, but I love,
love, love Christmas music! Wow…I guess
Travis was oh, so wrong about his popularity!
My favorite Christmas song is definitely Oh Holy Night…when sung by someone way more gifted than myself.
“Come thou Long Expected Jesus” from the album, You King Has Come. You MUST MUST MUST hear it! You can hear previews of each track at http://www.detunedradio.com and thank me later. If I had one to send you I would!
only 396, I would guess over 1000:)
My all-time favorite Christmas song is,,,, White Christmas by Elvis Presley
Leigh-NC
James Taylor’s Some Children See Him
I listened to it 1,973 times last Christmas.
Love Oh Holy Night. And I’m pretty sure my new fave will be one of Travis’ songs. I just don’t know it yet.
Oh it’s wonderful to meet another Christmas music lover!! :)
I turn it on early and play it long! Sometimes, I break it out in July…it’s gets me all dreamy! I also totally agree with you about Amy Grants first album…one of the best!
I’m so excited about this cd now so if I don’t win, I’m marching out to buy it!
Hmmmm, a favorite song – there’s too many to list but I’ll go with Amy Grant’s “Tender Tennessee Christmas.”
I got to go turn it on right now! :)
Mary did you know?
I love Mary Did You Know and White Christmas. I just keep hitting the back button so these two play over and over!
O Holy Night
and
Welcome to Our World
Though technically an advent song I’ll go ahead and say “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
I must say that I love Amy Grant’s Christmas Album also.
One of my favorite songs as a kid was, are you ready for this….
Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer
And yes, I do realize how very sad that is. :)
Perhaps Travis should have added a zero to the end of his prediction!
I love ‘What Child is This.’ (Is that the title? Well that’s how the song starts anyway.)
My favorite song is “O Holy Night.” And I have already listened to this song over and over by Travis, when I got an email saying I could listen for free! I even bought the CD, so I guess if I win, we’ll have a copy to share with a loved one (Chris’ Mom!), who loves to listen to Christmas!!
PS Amy Grant’s “Tennessee Christmas” has travelled many miles and heart-breaks with me.
O Holy Night
Hi,
Nothing says Christmas like “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
Thanks!
Debbie
I love Christmas music, I have actually listened to Bebo Norman’s Christmas album in the last week. ; )
I wont sign up for the giveaway because I already pre-ordered Travis’ CD, and I can’t wait I know it will be one of my favorites.
I just LOVE Christmas Music! My favorite song is “O Holy Night.”