The 8bitpeoples - The 8bits of Christmas

This has got to be one of the most unique collections of Christmas music ever made. Remember how I said Christmas music has something for just about everyone? Well, this one is for video game fans, particularly of old-school consoles like the NES, Game Boy, Atari 2600 and VIC20. Each of the 8 songs on this release were actually composed on video game consoles and computers. Clocking in at just under 18 minutes, it's a short listen, but songs like "the first blip blop noel" and "last christmas (hot digi remix)" will definitely help to get you in the mood for Christmas - and perhaps to break out that old Game Boy and play a few levels of Tetris as well!

Download The 8bits of Christmas for free from the Internet Archive. Let me know what you think in the comments, and also post a review on that site as well.

Welcome to the Free Christmas Music blog!

Greetings!

Halloween is almost here and gone, and around this time my thoughts always begin to turn to Christmas, which is by far my favourite time of year. There are many things that make Christmas a very special time for me, and one of the most prominent is always the music. Christmas music has a way of transcending genres and emotions in a way that very few forms of music can. No matter if it's Bing Crosby singing "Silver Bells" or Run D.M.C. telling us about "Christmas in Hollis"; Elvis Presley singing about his "Blue Christmas" or Spinal Tap describing "Christmas with the Devil"; whether a song is intended to make us laugh, cry, or reflect on things that are precious in our lives, Christmas music has an appeal that is so broad that people of just about any type should be able to find something to like about it.

So Christmas music is very special to me, and I always look forward to the last few weeks of the year when I listen to it nearly non-stop. Unfortunately, I love this music so much that my desire to hear more often far outstrips my budget. However, last year I came upon a solution to this predicament: using the Internet to download Christmas music for free. Not P2P networks or BitTorrent trackers that have scads of copyrighted music available for anyone to download, but websites that have music that is freely and legally downloadable. I spent hours searching for, downloading, and of course listening to some excellent, and often completely unique, Christmas music - all for free.

I thought that other people may also want to hear some of this music, so I decided to find ways to make it easier to access. The first such way was a Free Christmas Music website, which contains links to all of the free Christmas music I was able to find. Then I decided to make a custom search engine to search through all of those sites; you can find a search box for that search engine in this blog's sidebar.

This blog is the next step in making free Christmas music more accessible to everyone. My current plan is to highlight at least one artist, album, or song a week. At first, I will just use what's already on the website, but if I happen to run across any new free, legally downloadable Christmas music, I will post about it here first and then archive a link to it on the website. An RSS feed is available for up-to-the-minute site updates; you can find a link to it in the sidebar and also at the bottom of each page. I'm always open to suggestions and feedback of any sort, so please leave comments if there's anything about this blog that you want to discuss.

That's about it for an introduction. I guess it's still a little too early to be saying "Merry Christmas", but not for too much longer. For now, enjoy your Halloween and check back soon to start enjoying some excellent Christmas music - all for free!

In the spirit of both Halloween and Christmas, I'll leave you with a clip from The Nightmare Before Christmas.