a couple weeks ago, guest blogger bekah caraway submitted sufjan stevens’ o come o come emmanuel…which was on my original schedule for today’s track. it’s my favorite christmas song and i wanted it to culminate the collection, today on christmas.

instead of changing songs, though, i decided to simply change artists. the song is not only beautiful, but really expresses everything that is deeply meaningful to me this time of the year.

we’re nearing the end, friends, and i think it’s time for a traditional(ish) christmas song. i’ve been a fan of kevin max for a very long time. his christmas album, holy night, came out several years ago and has been in regular rotation every christmas since then. this is not only my favorite song from that album, but one of my favorite traditional christmas songs since i was a kid.

on tuesday, august 28, 2001, i didn’t make it to my 9 a.m. writing class. when i left my house that morning, i had every intention of being in attendance but ultimately, it didn’t happen.

word on the street is that it’s 2011.

2010 has been quite the year. life. death. and everything in between (we’ll get to all the in between stuff shortly).

earlier this week, i began my look back at 2010 with my list of best tv shows and continued the last couple days with my lists of new music discoveries, cover songs and songs. today concludes this week’s series, in which i’ve posted a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here’s the lineup for the week (each day i’ll come back and update this list with links):

monday: tv shows
tuesday: new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday: songs
friday: albums

to me, this is the granddaddy of all year-end lists. i’m still an albums kind of guy, as opposed to a single here and there. i like to sit down and listen to a collection of songs that were intended to go together. i think i’ve been able to narrow in on some of the truly great collections of music from 2010. from “emo rap” to throwback pop to a dark, twisted super-ego, there’s a little bit of everything (even, somewhat surprisingly, something that verges on country…). so, be sure to go check these albums out and see if my you agree with my conclusions.