So Christmas season is officially upon us. The Cher tree is up with a new, sturdier nativity.

It’s also time to link to my Massive Christmas Playlist(s). It was a pleasure, (a pleasure!), to add three of Cher’s Christmas songs to the list. Now Cher is officially ON my massive Christmas Playlist.  And her songs add some happy and fun to the blend.

You can listen to the playlist on Spotify or Tidal. Usually I plug the Tidal version of my playlists because Tidal pays artists more per stream and has HiFi. But there’s one song that’s suddenly missing from the Tidal list this year. (Tidal displays those songs grayed out.)

And so this troublemaker is making the Tidal list sub-par this year. Thus, I have to recommend listening to the Spotify mix this year instead.

Harumph. There’s always one.

Anyway, Cher said in one of her interviews, (excerpts post coming shortly), that she didn’t want to do a Christmas Special this year due to the writers and actors strikes (going on at the time of the interviews). Fair enough. I support that. But this just means we can start dreaming for next year!

Idea’s for next year’s possible Cher Christmas special:

  1. Cher dressing up as Mrs. Claus. That would be fun and adorable. A little feminist spin on the North Pole maybe.
  2. Cher showing us her favorite Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and Cher show clips with maybe some behind-the-scenes dish.
  3.  New Christmas skits and other Christmas-song-singing musical guests. And because everyone has done at least one Christmas song or an album or two, that’s like possibly everybody.

(See? It writes itself!)

Finally, I know we’ve all been listening to Cher’s new Christmas album non-stop over the last few weeks, but there are actually other 2023 Christmas album releases this year and although I surely won’t be able to listen to them all before the end of the year, there are a few I have listened to and I would like to mention the new Gregory Porter Christmas album, Christmas Wish, which is very good.

Every song is great, but there are some very timely songs included considering this troubled year, like “Everything’s Not Lost, and “Someday at Christmas.”

His song “Christmas Wish” is probably the best song with that overly-sentimental title.  After listening to it, you may want to kiss your mama if she was one of those who could turn Christmas into a magic time (as my mother could).  Porter does a very good duet-version of Ella Fitzgerald’s  great song, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” (I also love Patti LaBelle’s sparkly version.)  Not many artists every take on the Peanut’s Christmas theme, “Christmas Time is Here,” except jazz artists like Porter.  So that’s nice. Porter does a good version of Nat King Cole’s “A Cradle in Bethlehem” and I love the quietly-exciting end to his version of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Overall, a poignant-feeling Christmas album.

So enjoy a Christmas cookie and some nice new Xmas jams…and my new Cher-boyfriend nativity.