Now that Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are all behind us, the holiday season is in full swing. Lights and decorations are going up all over town and you can hear carols old and new playing from many of the stores. Just as many people unapologetically love Hallmark Christmas movies, I unironically love holiday music. Each year I check out new recordings and search for old ones that I have somehow missed.
Luckily for me and anyone else with a library card, there is a vast collection of holiday music on Hoopla, our online music source. Once you have set up an account with Hoopla you can download up to five full albums per month. To browse the holiday collections you can choose “Music” from the Browse menu at the top of the screen or tap the “Music” button in the mobile app. On the home page for music, there are lists for holidays: R&B Christmas and Holidays: Soundtracks and Compilations.
These are fine lists, but to view a more complete selection, click the big blue “Genres and Collections” button. If you click on “See All Featured Collections,” you can check out 12 lists of holiday music including jazz, country, new for 2022, and music for kids. The lists are around 50 titles each so they aren’t overwhelming.
If you are like me and want to see everything Hoopla has to offer, go back to the “Genres and Collections” page and click “Genres.” If you then click “Holiday,” you will see a staggering collection of 2,925 albums. Of course, this is far too much potential scrolling so I highly recommend sorting by Popularity or Release Date. Browsing by the most popular or newest releases will likely uncover a few gems. A few of the releases that I just found include I Dream of Christmas by Norah Jones, The Complete James Brown Christmas, and the new and very complete “super deluxe edition” of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
I hope you have as much fun browsing Hoopla’s vast music collections as I do. Happy holidays!