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I love Pandora, but this would never work. I'm not willing to refine a holiday station the way I would a station that I can listen to the other 11 months of the year. There's not enough bang for the buck (with the buck being my time.) Also, my holiday tastes are too eclectic. I like some novelty songs, like Dominic the Donkey. I despise others (anything involving grandparents and reindeer colliding, or anyone making out with the jolly, fat man.)

My solution? I keep a Holiday genre on my iPod, along with a Master playlist that does not include the holiday songs. When the holidays roll around, I listen to everything on the iPod. The rest of the year, I listen to the Master. I add a song or two a year to the Holiday genre, sort of like some people buy a Christmas tree ornament or two every year. Over time, I've amassed quite a collection--and I love every song.

These days, I suppose Spotify (or one of its kin) could fill the bill.

k88dad, on 30 November 2011 - 09:07 AM, said:

I disagree. I think Mr. Breen's suggestions are perfectly reasonable. It would certainly take me a lot less time to hit thumbs-down a few times while listening. It's not like I need to set aside extra time beforehand to set this up. Compared to tagging all of my songs with a holiday genre, then assembling playlists, THEN using a Master playlist the rest of the year--come on. Your technique is clumsy and it assumes we all own holiday music. Not everyone owns the songs they like to hear this time of year (and some of us don't WANT to own them). Your suggestion about buying a song or two each year may solve that, but the point of the article is to avoid the expense (and time) and to use Pandora instead.

I appreciate that you have a different techique, but to say that "this would never work" is ridiculous. Christopher's Pandora solution is as easy as it is convenient. Thanks for posting it!

I was all excited about using Pandora for Christmas playlists. But a quick visit to the Pandora website revealed that the service is NOT available in Canada - or anywhere outside the USA.
Pity :-(

There are no ads on my Roku box when I play Pandora. So far, also MOG too.

I listen to holiday music all year long pandora and other Internet radio is good for that.