More Christmas favorites...

These are my daughter's teacher and friend's gifts for this season - personalized packages of hot chocolate mix, mini chocolate chips and marshmallows - with a baggie of homemade peppermint-marshmallows on the side. Nice! (Who do you think she takes after?)

ArtTeaLife had posted her list of 5 favorite Christmas songs awhile back, which I have been thinking about. I don't know if I can narrow it down to five - and my list varies depending on my mood, but my list today would include:

1. As stated yesterday - certain versions of "O Holy Night" are probably my favorite all-around carol.
2. "The Wexford Carol" - Loreena McKennitt does a nice vocal version and Nightnoise does a nice instrumental (as well as a very nice version of "Lully Lullay")
3. "The Christ Child Lullaby" - a family group that I know called Fiddlesticks who perform Celtic-folk plays a version intercut with "The Black Dress" which I love. Look them up on CD Baby!
4. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", sung either by Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand. Have loved that one since I was tiny.
5. "Grown-Up Christmas List" sung by Amy Grant. More applicable than ever.

The bulk of the new storm missed us last night thankfully. But it had blown enough that we had bright sunny clear skies this morning. My very nice neighbor offered to let us fill his pickup with the fallen branch piles on our front lawn and he then took them to the dump. So, we made good use of the infrequently seen sun and absolutely filled his pickup. As well as my 50 gallon yard-waste container. And there's still more out there - but the bulk of it is gone. Thankyou for nice neighbors!