 This season, settle back into that easy chair or cozy up to the bar with loved ones and enjoy a hot serving of An Irish Coffee Christmas, featuring holiday songs from Irish artists with a distinct Irish flair. Oddly enough I could only find one song actually titled “Irish Coffee” which doesn’t sound seasonal but we’re going to make it so. Followed by and closing out the playlist appropriately enough is the catchy “Hot Toddy” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, who I am sure enjoyed Irish Whiskey from time to time. As always, the holiday playlist is thematic and arranged in a particular order. How to play: (1) Stream the playlist Spotify (2) Download the tracks to your computer (as individual tracks or the whole compilation as a .zip file) and add them to whatever app you use to listen to your own music. Box is not very mobile-friendly, but Google Drive is. Both directories include the music files, the cover art, CD insert, and track listing. Google Drive Box  Track List:
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Be sure to put a star at the top of the tree to remind your family who the angel is.  Listen on Spotify
Download: Via Google Drive Via Box: Tracks.Zip, Tracks folder, Cover art, Track list. Last Christmas, my bestie Paul Von Elterlein texted me a photo of his family tree—where he had placed a photo of himself at the top,—with the caption “This Christmas be sure to remind your family who is the star.” I quickly followed. Am I the star or the angel? Some seasons it’s tough to wear both halos. This year’s Hardcastle Holiday Music Mix is all about the evergreen we bring inside and to make the darkest season bright. Track List:
Wherever you are this season, I hope that glad tidings find you and bring you moments of merry.  Click here for the 2022 Christmas Where You Are playlist on Spotify.
Download the CD audio files (.zip) here. Track List:
While I am no longer sending out physical CDs, I keep the holiday collections to a CD-length (under an hour and twenty minutes). I was surprised just how many place-based Christmas songs there were to choose from, so also on Spotify you can find an extended playlist (over two and half hours) of Christmas locations, and if you’re curious you can look at an unedited playlist of more place songs I found (I stopped collecting when the list hit nearly 80). May the Christmas Spirit find you wherever you are. Download collection (click the top download button to save all) Spotify playlist Folder of single tracks (play/save singles, but rather clunky) CD insert (PDF) Cover art Track list  The pandemic is easing up but we are not out of the snowy woods yet. They are looking lovelier, but still dark and deep. While enjoying a tasty, mellow treat we came up with this year's theme of An Edible Xmas, and realized how many holiday songs featured food, and how much nicer the lights can look and how less stressful the holidays can be with the right... edible. So for 2021, as those who are near to us can be near to us once more, I offer the following buffet of comfort food and coping mechanisms. Track list is below. Listen for the food. It may be easier to pop over to the Spotify playlist, but it's less fun if you know the real track names. So download the the audio files, add the album to your devices, and enjoy foraging for the foods.  Download Collection (click the top download button to save all)
Spotify playlist Folder of single tracks (play/save singles, but kinda clunky) CD insert (PDF) Cover art Track Menu  (This letter as a PDF, with links. ) Considering...well, everything...I was not inclined to make a holiday music mix this year. Not just because I need a new printer if I were to make the physical CDs, but this will be the first time, ever, that I will not be with my family for Christmas. I love them enough to protect us both and not travel during the national surge in the pandemic. With the extended isolation, holiday homesickness, and the general state of the world, I have had difficulty finding the holiday spirit. But then I got a letter. Well, it’s 2020 so I got a text message. For the first time, Tersh and Chappell aren’t taking their family back to Virginia to see their parents either. They cherish the holiday CDs I used to leave at their door and keep the collection where they spend their Christmastime, i.e. in Virginia. They asked if I could could put a new playlist on Spotify. Even with dozens of streaming services with curated holiday music channels, they asked for mine. I started to get the feels. Then I got another message. And another. While my Christmas has not been tinged with such loss since Dad passed, I started to feel the jingle. I have always been touched by the thank-you notes for the CDs, and I sincerely appreciate that I have become part of so many family traditions. Sometimes it makes me feel like an invisible elf getting to be a part of your holiday. I made my first Christmas CDs when I got one of the very first personal CD burners in 2000; years before iTunes existed or mp3s were common. I made a three-disk set for myself, and two friends. Each took over an hour, track by track. The next year I made copies for my family. The year after that, I started getting requests for discs. I have never sent out Christmas cards because they are too much trouble. Within a few years I found myself making over a hundred CDs and spending a lot of time at the post office. This for a guy who couldn’t be bothered to mail a card. Then CDs became obsolete. And save for those who still requested CDs, the holiday music mix moved to digital delivery—even though I lament feeling a part of the family CD collection brought out every year. This year, the Hardcastle Holiday Music Mix is available for download and as a Spotify playlist. The app is free and you will be able to follow a link to play to from nearly any computer or mobile device. There was a request to make the historical editions into playlists as well. As I recreated the back catalog, I noticed how many songs I repeated over the years. Some for practical reasons (as I am working from my own finite CD collection), some fit into themes nicely, some are just favorites, and some are repeated on purpose so by their familiarity—like lights in the window or scents from the kitchen—hearing them will make you feel like Christmas. Recreating these playlists also highlighted the limitations of Spotify. So many of my favorite songs are from artist friends, local bands, treasures I would find visiting Amoeba Records and the library every year, or fun things I found via YouTube. Many of these gems are nowhere to be found on streaming services. The playlists shared online are incomplete and absent many of my cherished favorites. But as with so much of 2020, this Christmas we will make do. Seeking inspiration for this Christmas’ theme, I felt very much like I did the first Christmas without Dad: a lament for absent loved ones, having a blue Christmas, and wishing for the happy Christmases we knew before. But I didn’t want to make this year a complete downer, and it was hard to find apt selections for A Dumpster Fire Christmas. The more I thought about it, the more I believed my sentiments of this Christmas are best reflected in the original 1944 “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Meet Me In St. Louis, before Sinatra asked that the lyrics be changed to make them merrier. I think by its ingrained familiarity we don’t really hear the words anymore. This was a song of wartime: singing to souls who have endured sustained emotional trauma, singing to souls separated from their loved ones far away, from those who cannot and maybe will never come home. It is also a song of hope. Judy sings to us that, yes, Christmas sucks this year. But we can hope that next year will be better. And for now, we endure and we persevere. And while next year will be better, she wishes us a some form of merry in this moment, even if it is just a little version of the Christmas we long for. I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams. Next year all our troubles will be far away. The British might have sung “Keep calm and carol on.” Listen again:
This, to me, sounds very much like a quarantine Christmas. And my gift for you this little Christmas is the 2020 Hardcastle Holiday Music Mix: Merry Maskmus. You may have noticed, each year I try to tell a story and the tracks are laid out in a specific order. This year starts with the thesis statement “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and acknowledges in several tracks that “It Won’t be Christmas Without You.” (I could not bring myself to include “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” because I won’t, and listening to it still chokes me up.) I wish that all of us “Keep Warm and Safe This Winter.” And if we are going to make for ourselves a merry little Christmas now, we are going to have to “Accentuate the Positive”—which I never thought of as a Christmas song but it was on Aretha’s Christmas album and if Die Hard can be a Christmas movie then this song can be a carol. Even though many of us will be spending the holiday alone, still “It Must Be Christmas,” with “Christmas Lights,” “Christmas on My Radio,” and “Christmas Wrapping.” Then I’m going to jingle all the goddamn way, then finally “Count My Blessings,” “Light a Candle,” and appreciate “Christmas as I Knew It.” Which is much better than so many families have ever had, or will have this year. Until next year—when our troubles will be miles away and those who are dear to us will be near to us once more—I wish for you a merry, if little, Christmas. Now. Merrily, Wilson Subordinate Claus
Download tracks Spotify playlist CD insert and track list (pdf) This year with its many changes I am feeling more quintessential about the holidays and I feel like soaking in a Christmas mood with a spiced Manhattan and classically rich vocals. Please enjoy these seasonal crooners, both classic and contemporary. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Baby, it's cold outside. But I've got my love to keep me warm.As I thought about the holiday season and what sensations and feelings I enjoyed, I kept coming back to that warm feeling of the season and how it is so wonderful to be cozy inside curled up with your favorite things (flannel pajamas, music, movies, crackling fire, mulled ciders and wines), favorite people, or favorite furballs curled up in your lap. But also the season is that feeling of bright lights shining in dark nights, crisp cold air, and if you’re lucky: a blanket of white that does not also mean dangerous conditions. I also realized that we can’t be warm and bright inside without a cold and dark outside. Our winter wonderlands and rocking around the Christmas tree are two sides of the same season. And thus this year’s mix is a celebration of the cold and the cozy. So set out over the river and through the woods, and let the sleigh bells jingle all the way, to whomever’s hearth makes you feel warm inside. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  First comes the stocking of little Nell. Oh, dear Santa fill it well! Give her a dolly that laughs and cries; one that will open and shut her eyes. Next comes the stocking of little Bill—oh just see what a glories fill! Give him a hammer with lots of tacks, also a ball and a whip that cracks. A pair of hop-a-long boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen. Or slip a sable under the tree. Deeds to platinum mines also welcome. Naughty or nice, I hope you get everything on your list this year and your heart’s desires. Be it lord a’leaping or maid a’milking. Gold, frankincense, or myrrh. Everyone loves myrrh. Of course, all I want for Christmas is you. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Last year I received a request for a compilation of the more silly, satirical, and salacious holiday songs out there. I believe I have found a fun balance of all of these, and if you ever think a selection goes too far I can share with you some of the wonderfully explicit songs I discovered that I did not include —I know there are still some kids out there that are only mildly disturbed. I mean, with parents like you they can’t all be angels of the annunciation. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  Relaxing music for a yuletide by the fireside, and joyful memories there. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  Jolly! Music for the holiday party! 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  A merry soundtrack for the cocktail hour. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  This winter we lost our loving Santa Claus and Father Christmas, John Bachman Hardcastle. 1936-2011. God rest ye, merry gentleman. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  We've heard from the Carols and the belles, and this year was an arrangement from merry gentlemen singing the season. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Songs for holiday drinking. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Songs for hanging out waiting to be kissed. I was ultimately found by Ty Herndon before he came out. XO! 
Download tracks Spotify playlist  This year I was into really fun DJ "club" remixes of traditional holiday songs. I was so pleased to hear among my parents' friend and my godparents that this was their favorite one yet. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Southern Songstresses Celebrate the Season. Building on the preview year's Mary Christmas, this wreath is made of tiny lady face wreaths. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Female artists celebrate the season. I particularly enjoyed making this "lady face as wreath and bow" image. Very That Girl. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist With so many non-Christian friends who also love the holidays, I made a compilation of Jesus-free winter songs to celebrate! 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Gotta love a family with a Santa suit a black belt with a Nashville buckle. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Even though it is immensely popular I don't think I had mentally registered Baby, It's Cold Outside until 2003. When I went looking for it after hearing it, I found dozens and dozens of versions. I thought these were well paired with versions of Let It Snow! Let it Snow! let It Snow! If we are using the snow as an excuse to get romantic, bring on the blizzard. 
Download tracks Spotify playlist Long before iTunes and with one fo the first CD burners, I switched from making myself mix tapes to mix CDs. You had to rip and record one track at a time by switching out the CD and the CD-R each time. These CDs weren't meant for anyone but me to play current Christmas favorites in a three holiday moods. I did make a copy for my parents, and then a holiday music swap among my circle of intimates. There are no online versions of these tracks but I always loved my first holiday music covers.    
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Wilson HardcastleI used to keep a blog. Don't anymore. I switched to Weebly to keep a personal site up and the blog feature seems to be the only way to make simple pages of text, images, and links. But they require this whole "tell people about your products!" blog box. Which is kind of annoying and entirely unnecessary. So in the words of so many before me: Archives
December 2024
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