The Holiday Music Fest 2017

Well, 'tis the season.  Once again, the year has rolled around to our annual Holiday Music Fest.  I try to come up with "lesser knowns" -- either lesser-known (but wonderful) holiday songs or lesser-known (but wonderful) versions of well-known songs.  Many of the pieces are perennials from the past, but I've hopefully come up with a few new things for this year.

Like this one, of "The Little Drummer Boy." 

A couple weeks ago, when getting disgruntled by a spate of Trump White House news stories pilling on top of one another, I decided to check out YouTube to see if I could find any video clips from The West Wing.  And boy howdy, were they wonderful.  One after another.  I watched clip after clip for probably 40 minutes -- and only stopped because I knew I could stay there for another hour or so.  And one that I tracked down was this, from one of the show's usually-terrific Christmas episodes, in fact from the first season, "In Excelsis Deo."

It comes from the end of the episode and from the dialogue I think it will be self-explanatory.  But to give a brief recap for perspective, The presidential speechwriter Toby had pulled some strings ​by very-inappropriately using the president's name to get a homeless Korean War veteran a military burial.

This is a gem, beautifully-crafted with meticulous attention to detail and thought.  And will really make you miss the show on top of everything else...