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Christmas is coming quickly, and with thoughts of Yuletide cheer and Christmas carols in mind, we present to you our first annual Christmas Music Wrap-Up, summarizing the new Christmas albums released by Christian record labels in the last few months.

One Silent Night | Yolanda Adams | Avalon | Crystal Lewis
Essential Energy Christmas | Glad | Lonestar
Child Of The Promise | A Christmas Reunion

Various Artists (Myrrh Records)

There seems to be two major trends in Christian music right now: praise & worship and music for women by women. A couple of examples are the popular Women of Faith worship albums and the recent Mercy Project and Heaven & Earth albums. Now we have an all women Christmas project entitled One Silent Night. I was afraid it would be yet another variation on the Point of Grace sound, filled with Christmas songs that all sound the same and follow the usual Christian pop clichés, or based on the cover, perhaps a collection of pretty lullabies. I love it when I'm wrong. Instead, we have smartly written original songs, interesting arrangements of classic Christmas songs, superb vocal performances, and intelligent production by Monroe Jones (Chris Rice, Mark Schultz). He's rapidly becoming my favorite producer in Christian music, skillfully blending the beauty of traditional Christmas music with modern pop sensibilities on this project. This is an excellent album that focuses on the mystery of God made flesh, and his ultimate destiny as Savior. And I haven't even touched upon the contributions of Cindy Morgan, Amy Grant, Leigh Nash (of Sixpence None the Richer), Ginny Owens, Crystal Lewis, and all the others. I was impressed with each of their performances and the quality of songwriting. Of all this year's Christmas albums, One Silent Night gets my award for artistic excellence. It should be sought out by anyone looking for something just a little different from the norm.

Yolanda Adams (Sparrow/Elektra Records)

Yolanda's stunning voice has deservedly earned her a lot of attention in the last couple years, including a critically acclaimed Grammy-winning smash with her album Mountain High … Valley Low, which has sold over a million copies so far. Christmas With Yolanda Adams is her first Christmas album, and it's a pretty irresistible recording. Yolanda's voice is immensely likable, at times gentle and pretty while other times very soulful and powerful. The music also has a wide appeal, a well-blended mix of gospel/R&B and pop with neither genre heavily dominating the other. I wasn't thrilled with the overly R&B feel of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," but it's the only track that didn't work well for me — of course I'm not always an R&B fan either. The rest of the album is wonderful, especially two smart medleys: "Carol of the Bells" with "What Child Is This?" and the "Joy" medley featuring "Joy to the World," "Angels We Have Heard On High," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and "Ode to Joy." I also liked the beautiful and gentle acoustic treatment of "The Christmas Song" and an interesting upbeat version of "The First Noel." The songs are, for the most part, very similar in instrumentation, but you won't care — Yolanda's voice is too beautiful to make it an issue. The best Christmas albums appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds and instill feelings of nostalgia and reverence. Christmas With Yolanda Adams succeeded.

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