But don’t Scrooge yourself over this year: there’re plenty of jolly melodies out there in the cloud, all for free, that will have your toes tapping and your Christmas Spirit-o-meter off the charts. Read below for some of the best sites on the Internet to stream Christmas music, free and clear.
Last.fm
Designed to be a comprehensive music site and social network—a sort of mashup of pandora and facebook—last.fm is a phenomenal resource for free Christmas listening. You’ll find the big ones, like Michael Buble or Mariah Carey, streamed for free, all for your personal listening pleasure.
Aol Radio
AOL’s music radio service has a comprehensive selection, life Last.fm, but ignores the annoying social networking features and gets right to the good stuff. Whether you want jazz, latin, country, orchestral, or Christian-themed Christmas songs, AOL radio’s got it.
Live365.com
This Internet satellite radio service holds a treasure trove of corny Christmas favorites. On first search, the “CHRISTMAS RADIO US” might greet you with the vocal stylings of John Denver, Air Supply or Reba McEntire. Other stations will take you back to the heady days of Fred Astaire and Andy Williams. You can’t download the music—it’s all streaming—but if you’re looking to provide great atmosphere to your Christmas party, then live365.com is a phenomenal resource.
Feelslikechristmas.com
If you want to make it an indie Christmas, this site is a fantastic compendium of Xmas music from independent musicians nationwide. The quality varies, but these independent artists want to be heard. You never know what Holiday gems you’ll find—from up and coming artists you’ve never heart of–on this free Christmas music site.
Christmasgifts.com
While the navigation on this site is a touch annoying, you’ll find a honey pot of great, free Christmas music for your downloading pleasure if you click on to christmasgifts.com/music. There’s a fun variety of classics in various styles, from funky r & b to orchestral arrangements to midi files. Most of them are rights-managed under the creative commons license, which basically means you can use the music however you want as long as you’re not making a profit.
Whatever your listening pleasure, there’s no need to break the budget on Christmas music this year. It doesn’t matter if you’re making a slideshow or friends, or just want a nice yuletide atmosphere at your Christmas party—there’s a limitless supply of great Christmas music to legally download or stream on the Internet.