And here’s my best wishes for a warm and relaxing Christmas holiday. Taste some new Christmas songs.

Mankku [Mancko] – “Brustna hjärtan på annandag jul”

A Treehouse Wait – “Make the Gates All Wide”

L.E.J – “Game of Bells”

Finnegan’s Hell – “Drunken Christmas”

Femme – “2016 (Cry Cry Cry)”

Yesterday the Christmas season started for real as I had to scramble up att seven and join my daughters in front of the TV to watch this year’s Christmas calendar. And every year it’s both fascinating and a bit stressful to see how much a holiday can dominate society during one whole month. In the music business many say that December is the worst period during the year to release music, if it’s not Christmas songs of course.

I’m not going to revel in Christmas vibes here on the blog, though, with just a couple of exceptions. I will probably have a traditional post about new Christmas songs later on, and also present a tip about an alternative Christmas calendar today. It’s the singer-songwriter Mårten Lärka who this year counts ten year for his Christmas track “Trasiga pepparkakshjärtan” (“Broken gingerbread hearts”). He’s celebrating this by inviting friends and artist colleagues to make their own versions of the song, which he presents every day in the calendar together with some other clips. Most of it is in Swedish. He writes:

“There’s a huge varaition among the contributions. One clip from Paris gives me goosebumps and another from Brunflo (town in Jämtland, in the north of Sweden) is a piece of fascinating swamp blues and yet another is a collage of images, so strong I don’t know how to handle it.” (transl. from Swedish)

You can follow the calendar on Mårten Lärka’s Facebook page and here below you can listen to the original song and also watch the first part. And first up was the mentioned swamp blues with Jens Gustavson in Brunflo.

December 1st. The kids have opened their advent calendars and for once they can eat a piece of chocolate every morning, the Christmas stars are twinkling in the darkness and the cat is cursing the Christmas candles as they have stolen his favorite place on the windowsill. Such a day must of course be crowned with the best of Christmas songs, namely “I Wish a Good Christmas to You” by Jon Rinneby & co.

As Jon told us in an interview here on Meadowmusic, he is releasing the song “I Wish a Good Christmas to You” today, which is all done for the benefit of Musikhjälpen 2014 (“The Music Help 2014”, Swedish charity project run by public radio). All revenue from the song is donated to Musikhjälpen either you click on “Buy” in the player below (which also gives you the song to download), or if you want to donate through SMS directly at the collection box.

Musikhjälpen 2014 is about stopping the spread of HIV in the world, helping those that are most in need and sharing knowledge about HIV and aids. You can read more here (in Swedish). The collection has already started here and there, but the radio show is going on between the 8th and the 11th of December, broadcasted from Uppsala this year.

Here you are, a new Christmas classic in the making:

Every year I present some new Christmas songs in a post, and this year’s no exception. If you’d like to check out the songs from earlier years you can check them out here: 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

First up is ad dios. They have produced Christmas songs every year since a few years back, and now finally they have made a collection of these, together with new ones, on the album “Season of Tranquillity”. Here’s the opening track:
In the Bleak Midwinter

I wrote about Slottet and their new EP “Servants” a couple of weeks ago. Here’s their Christmas contribution:
A Cold Christmas

The Higher Elevations released their Christmas song in 2006, but since I haven’t presented it before, I thought it would fit perfectly in today’s post:
All These Winter Nights

Acid House Kings with their new Christmas single:
(I’m In) A Chorus Line 

Finally a contribution from Skånske Arne & Jonny Spöge who with “Kanske tomten har Facebook” (“Maybe Santa has Facebook”) finish a productive year with this follow-up to their debut singel “Gula lådan“:
Kanske tomten har Facebook

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Edit 20/12 2011 – added the new Christmas single from Acid House Kings

It’s time to spread som Christmas ambience here on  Meadowmusic. We wish you all a most pleasant Christmas.

If you’d like to explore earlier Christmas gifts here on Meadowmusic, you can find the songs from 2009 here and the ones from 2008 here.

First up is a wonderful collaboration between Pär Edwardson (composer and the performer of the song), Johan Strömberg (composer) and Tobbe Möller (lyrics):
Let Me In For Christmas

Next it’s time for a Christmas boogie with BFM. Armed with their recent debut album they have followed this up with a Christmas Single:
Rock Around The Xmas Tree

Art Acoustic, which we presented during Autumn, invites us to celebrate Christmas in the woods:
X-Mas In the Woods

Finally we slow it down a little and go for some Christmas ambience with ad dios. The band (which recently released the album Avalon Revisited) has a tradition of interpreting an old English Christmas carol every year, and this year they have also crossed the channel and invites us to some French Christmas ambience:
Il est né le Divin Enfant

Merry Christmas!