Some people love Christmas music. Others, not so much.

I can relate to both camps: If I ever have to hear George Michael's "Last Christmas" again, I'll drive a stake of holly through George's heart (apologies to Charles Dickens for the reference). But I can listen to Peter, Paul, and Mary singing "A Soalin'" ad infinitum.

Some Christmas songs, and/or carols, are classic by virtue of simple repetition (i.e. they've been played so often they're burned in your brain, whether or not you ever wanted them there in the first place), some are parodied and/or mocked by virtue of their simple repetition (e.g. you could put together a dozen albums based on satirical takes on "The 12 Days of Christmas"), and somewhere in the middle are a handful of genuinely good tunes that are classic simply because they deserve to be classic.

Then somewhere beyond that are the songs I've selected for the Christmas Jukebox. As for why I picked these songs ... well, pull up a chair and I'll tell you.

No Christmas is complete without some serenading by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Yes, I do realize that I've said "Christmas is not complete without [insert any noun here]" rather more than a few times on these pages, but really, if I had to pick one record, and one record only, as my desert island Christmas LP, this would be it. And that's without even flipping over to side B.

When I was a kid I'd pop this on our giant Zenith Hi-Fi console record player, cozy up right next to one of the big 12" built-in speakers, and listen to side A pretty much over and over again. Side B was all your regular choral classics such as "Adeste Fideles" and "The First Nowell" [sic], along with some medley of tunes that was miles and moods apart from the complete and utter irreverence and silliness of the four songs on side A, which I've included in full in the jukebox above.

We open with Jingle Bells, sung by Glee Club, Soloists, and Orchestra, and it's a marvelous arrangement -- we start out with a noisy party of singers (complete with chatter in the background), which morphs into more of a barbershop quartet, then it changes tempo, ultimately becoming a rhumba or samba or whatever, flowing into a Carmen Mirand-ish tango, complete with maracas, then back to a big-band beat ... really, it's just marvelous.

What could possibly follow that except for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as sung and sound-effected by The Pennsylvanians and The Teen Trio With Livingston Gearhart and the Orchestra. It's played through once in "normal" fashion, then a second time in what can only be described as a totally corny and ridiculous romp incorporating what appears to be every sound effect in the library (plus a bunch of pots and pans). As a kid, this song ranked up with Martin and Lewis as gut-splitting stuff.

Third is a relatively straight big-band version of Santa Claus is Coming To Town as performed by The Teen Trio with Harry Simeone and the Orchestra, just to show that they didn't need props to have a good time, and last but not least, the definitive version of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, with the Glee Club and Orchetra - Teen Trio, Gordon Goodman and Jack Best, Soloists. Just take a listen. Really, it's the best.

Tom Lehrer is one of my idols. To me, he's the ideal mixture of intelligence -- he's a math teacher, among other things -- and smart-ass, as witnessed by his song here, A Christmas Carol. Here are a few of the reviewer's quotes that Tom himself picked out for liner notes on one of his albums:

• "Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste." - New York Times (9 February 1959)
• "More desperate than amusing" - New York Herald Tribune
• "He seldom has any point to make except obvious ones" - Christian Science Monitor
• "Plays the piano acceptably" - Oakland Tribune

Tom was sorta famous for a little while back in the 50's and 60's, or at least heard of, mostly in colleges and a few times on the old Tonight Show with Steve Allen, but I don't know if anybody born after 1970 has even heard of him. If you have (heard of him, that is), then you already know what I'm talking about. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, do a web search on Tom Lehrer and see what you've been missing.

The Twelve Days of Christmas has been sung straight and/or twisted by pretty much anybody's who has ever had a recording contract, but to my mind, never better than by Allan Sherman in his The Twelve Gifts of Christmas. And yes, that's Allan with two "l's" in the middle. And yes, he's another one of my idols, an ideal mixture of intelligence and smart-ass-ness, are you noticing a pattern here?

Sherman, whom you've probably never heard of either, was the creator and original producer of the popular I've Got a Secret (1952-1967), but was fired after a particularly unsuccessful episode (featuring Tony Curtis) that aired June 11, 1958. Later, he found that the little song parodies he performed to amuse his friends and family were taking a life of their own. Sherman had the good fortune to live in Van Nuys next door to Harpo Marx, who invited Sherman to perform his song parodies at parties attended by Marx's show-biz friends. After one such party, George Burns phoned a record executive and persuaded him to sign Sherman to a contract. The result was an LP of these parodies, My Son, the Folk Singer, in 1962. The album was a smash, and for a few years everybody in America knew his name.

If none of the above about Sherman rings any bells, I'll bet you've heard "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah," which was the #2 song on the Billboard charts for three weeks in 1963. Alas, Sherman's creative career was rather short: After its peak in 1963, his popularity declined during 1964, and in 1965 he released two albums that did not make the top 50. In 1966 Warner Brothers dropped him from the label. He had a few minor successes after that, and was the voice of the Cat in The Hat for a couple of TV specials in 1971, but nothing to match his former fame.

Sherman struggled with lung disease, and died of emphysema in 1973, ten days before his 49th birthday. Rest in peace, big guy.

This is the city. Los Angeles, California. Dum da dum dum, DUMMMM!

Christmas Dragnet is a short radio satire created by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler in 1953 for use on the Stan Freberg Radio Show, which only lasted 15 episodes. It's sort of a sequel to their hit St. George and the Dragonet, which I suspect you've never heard, either. Sigh.

Stan Freberg was employed as a voice actor in animation shortly after graduating from high school. He began at Warner Bros. in 1946 by taking the advice of his uncle, stage magician Raymond Freberg (Conray the Magician), who advised him to take a bus into Los Angeles and have the driver let him off "in central Los Angeles," whereupon Freberg was to walk into the first building he saw and ask for an audition. He did this, got off the bus when he saw a sign that said "talent agency," walked in and immediately found work at Warner Brothers.

Daws Butler originated the voices of many famous animated cartoon characters, including Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. One of his first voice roles was that of Snap, one of the Rice Krispies elf mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop. His first major success, however, came in the mid-1940s at MGM. Tex Avery hired Butler to provide narration work for several of his cartoons.

In 1949 Butler landed a role in a televised puppet show created by former Warner Brothers cartoon director Bob Clampett, called Time for Beany. 33-year-old Butler was teamed up with 23-year-old Stan Freberg, and together they did all the voices of the puppets. The two became collaborators, and as somebody or other once said, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Me, I grew up in LA (well, at least until the age of seven or so), I love Dragnet, I love cartoons, I love Beany and Cecil (used to watch the later-years cartoon every week, I was too young for the puppet stuff), I love Stan Freberg and Daws Butler -- Christmas Dragnet combines all of the above into one cherished holiday experience.

So that's my little Christmas jukebox, and I hope you enjoy at least one of the songs here. If not, hey, you get what you paid for!