My last few Albums Of The Day were just EPs, very short releases. But today, I'm making up for it by featuring a collection of 42 tracks totaling just over 2 hours. From 2001 to 2006, Sufjan Stevens did what you might expect any music professional would do; instead of buying a gift at the store for his friends, he recorded and sometimes wrote a song for them. And he didn't just give them the song, but he also gave us this collection of tracks he recorded from 2001 through 2006. It comes on 5 CDs, each disc containing 7-11 tracks, and includes a booklet with lots of artwork and even a bunch of stickers so you can decorate your copy as you see fit. Some songs are just brief instrumentals even shorter than a minute, while others are full-length songs with lush instrumentation. Much of it, like the Sufjan Stevens non-Christmas releases of the era, are banjo-heavy or keyboard-based versions of classic carols, sometimes instrumental and other times with vocals. Many songs are a bit sad in tone, and a number of the original songs reference personal hardships and relationship problems over the holidays. Although they are not really Christmas-related, a number of versions of hymns like "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Amazing Grace" are included as well. There's a nearly 7-minute version of "What Child Is This" (called "What Child Is This Anyway?") that is very somber and creepy, and "Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!" features lots of distorted electric guitar. It's an expansive collection of Christmas material that is certainly not a cohesive album and is of varying styles and quality, but it's an opportunity to celebrate the Christmas season while listening to an artist's experiments of sorts, which is pretty fun and interesting to me. If you've got some favorites or a playlist of favorites from this collection, I'd love to hear it.

Release Year: 2006
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Released 30 years ago in the past few months and less than 6 months after their acclaimed self-titled debut album, this EP contains two Christmas songs and a few other recordings from one of my all-time favorite bands. "The Little Drummer Boy" is of course the focus of this EP, with a quiet, keyboard-heavy bed, some strings with acoustic guitar and vocals, then later a drum loop joins in. A "Grinch Mix" version of the title track is also included as Track 4, with a bit more of a dance beat and some unexpected elements. And a beautiful though unremarkable version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is also here. Finally, there's an acoustic version of the song "He" from their first album, which is beautiful and the lyrics heartbreaking. This EP was re-released in 1997 and instead of "God Rest Ye" and "He", there's a remix of the song "Blind" and a 3-minute instrumental called "Wicker Baskets", which is why I have two versions of this on CD. And in 2019, it was released on vinyl. This is a short EP that captures the earliest days of Jars of Clay and gives them a bit of Christmas material. Over the years, they added much more Christmas music to their repertoire with a full album and a few more EPs.

Release Year: 1995
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This is a very different style of instrumental from yesterday's orchestra and guitar of Phil Keaggy. This is instrumental rock from metalcore band August Burns Red. There is some bells, keyboards and even some strings, but it's mostly walls of guitars and lots of drums and bass on these heavy instrumentals. Classic carols like "O Holy Night", "Little Drummer Boy" and "Got Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" are performed here in a blistering pace along with more recent songs like "Frosty The Snowman" and standards like "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells". The title track, one of two original instrumentals, actually gets a bit country/bluegrass too. Oh yes, "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" has gang vocals, so I guess the whole album is not instrumental. It's a fun listen if you're looking for some heavy metal vibes to your Christmas celebrations, and who isn't looking for that? And it looks like streaming has 2 tracks my CD does not. Interesting.

Release Year: 2012
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Released 25 years ago this past October, this album is in my Top 5 Christmas albums of all time. Matthew Smith and his friends put together a beautiful collection of songs to celebrate the Christmas season, both songs new and old. Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken open it with a new folk melody to "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus". Matthew Perryman Jones, Jill Phillips, Mandy Ihrig and Billy Cerveny deliver beautiful renditions of fairly common carols. I really love the middle of the album with Jeremy Casella's guitar-heavy original "Joyful Fire". And then Andrew Osenga does a very interesting version "Of The Father's Love Begotten"; it's a bit sad and is mostly just electric guitar and vocals, and some of my family doesn't like it, but I find it unexpected and fun. The best part is Matthew Smith's version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" that leads right into his original response to the hymn, "Your King Has Come", a beautiful new modern song celebrating Jesus's birth. Katy Bowser also sings a beautiful variation on the translation of "Silent Night" called "Still The Night". If you're looking for some independent, folk-rock music to get you into the Christmas spirit, look no further than this album.

Release Year: 2000
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