Lugging Christmas decorations from our Brooklyn basement last weekend, I hit the play button on my massive third-generation iPod, still playing our family’s Christmas tunes. I noticed my eclectic playlist was a jumble of Recent York memories masquerading as holiday songs on old tech – a fitting tribute to a city that still sings together with a wacky combination of holiday tunes that someway sound cheerful, even in a rickety urban infrastructure that ring to home.
First up is Whitney Houston’s riveting “Do You Hear What I Hear?”: also successful for the Salvation Army singer who has sung it at Bloomingdale’s for years. Memories of her red kettle and chiming bell, and the equally good version of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” made each songs on my list.
Next track, “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-DMC. “Mama Cooks Chicken and Cabbage” is as much my grandmother’s stew pot in Kentucky as DJs in Queens.
![Run, DMC and Jam Master Jay from Run-DMC](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/christmas-playlist-521.jpg?w=1024)
Sting’s world then beat “I Saw Three Ships” and Wyclef Jean’s ravishing reggae remix of “Little Drummer Boy/Hot Hot Hot”. Each sound great on the bucket drums that still echo on the A-Train in December.
Then Stevie Nicks’ mournful Silent Night, so beloved I asked for it over and another time until my husband silenced me for an encore at Fleetwood Mac at Madison Square Garden – in March.
We sing traditional hymns in church and sing carols near the Borough Hall Christmas Market – to generate foot traffic (as a substitute of Amazon clicks) and spread joy. I like the classic John and Yoko, Bruce and Mariah in the alleys of Wegmans and piped to Fulton Mall.
But the melting pot of Recent York has brought some offbeat holiday extras. My kids’ school was too atheist for overtly Christian carols, but apparently not for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” band Aid. Bob Geldof and his 80s pop stars had nothing to do with the angelic Recent York third graders humming “There will be no snow in Africa this Christmas” and merrily playing gylas, djembes and panpipes.
I added Pink Floyd’s “One other Brick in the Wall”, an odd alternative for Christmas due to a winter break organized by the highschool math teacher in “We do not need no education” – one verse with a British accent. Ah, brownstone Brooklyn. But each have a everlasting place on the iPod and in my heart.
![Featuring Adam Sandler](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/christmas-playlist-519.jpg?w=1024)
Like Messiah this 12 months in her friend’s posh box at Carnegie Hall, her mum on stage – ceaselessly pairing Handel’s sacred rating with plush velvet seats, small gilded doors, and the shuffling of pricy front rows evacuating after the chorus of “Hallelujah.”
“Feliz Navidad” evokes the Bronx, due to Alan at my post office, who, God bless him, has valiantly tried to show me salsa at our Christmas party for years. Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” ditto, played by Rob on his bass guitar, cheering for his friends.
Broadway: check. “We Need a Little Christmas” from “Mame,” once a memory of a Kentucky community theater, my Recent York City dream, then only a flash, now a Christmas memory of a 2am visit with my truck driver brother at the West Village piano bar Crisis Marie.
My husband loves 1981’s “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses, with its spirited melody and unexpected all-night deli encounter with an old sweetheart buying cranberry sauce – the story of a Recent York winery if I’ve ever heard it.
Enter Adam Sandler’s hilarious Hanukkah Song and Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, added by my son’s Jewish girlfriend the 12 months she taught me the best way to make latkes – now a Christmas Eve tradition alongside my Duane Reade menorah. Unfortunately, we lost this pharmacy last 12 months to a theft. But I’m still smiling shooting Blind Boys of Alabama’s “Born in Bethlehem” due to this surprise appearance at City Winery.
![Open-air of the Nederlander Theater on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of RENT.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/christmas-playlist-522.jpg?w=322)
Then there’s Celtic Woman’s memorable “Auld Lang Syne”, paying homage to Recent York from Sex and the City – a 90s version, not this 12 months’s reboot.
My five disc changer remains to be loaded with last 12 months’s Christmas CDs. The Vince Guaraldi Trio Charlie Brown CD was paying homage to Jazz at Lincoln Center, but is now a homage to the Grand Canyon restaurant on Montague Street, cheerfully decorated with stuffed peanuts wearing surgical masks to sustain themselves.
There’s also “Now that’s what I call Christmas!” the shield remained in a used Ford Explorer I purchased from a Bay Ridge fireman. “Keep it,” he said, “and take into consideration first responders in December.” Ten years later, I’m still doing it!
But perhaps the best tune on my Big Apple Christmas playlist is “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.” In a city that someway still sings and wobbles this holiday season after two rough years, love is the only way for Recent Yorkers to measure out the 12 months.
Caroline Aiken Koster is a author and lawyer from Recent York.