The Most Wonderful Time ...

Among the joys and pleasures of my Rosh Hashannah weekend in New York — aside from our dinner with my 100-year-old great uncle — was the discovery that although October is barely a week old, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (sing it with me: evvvv'rywhere you go.)

At the Super Stop & Shop near my parents' place, right as you walk in the door, there's a giant, 8-foot-tall inflatable snow globe. "Snow" was blowing all around inside of it and the thing was just ginormous. It's $149 and soooo worth it. Suffice it to say, it'd look perfect in my apartment.

Considering I've already received a few advance copies of upcoming Christmas CDs — Brian Setzer's (skip it) and Diana Krall's (awesome) — and I know one is on its way overnight to me — Brian Wilson's (can't wait) — for delivery tomorrow morning, and all this is on top of the fact that I'm currently working on the December and holiday issues of two different magazines already, it seems I've bypassed Halloween and Thanksgiving and am in a Christmas state of mind. Of course, considering this is the most wonderful time of the year, I'm not complaining.

And I suppose this can only mean one thing: it's almost time to start compiling my seventh (or is it my eighth?) annual "A Very Marty Christmas" CD. (I guess it's worth reminding those readers who don't know any better that I am Jewish. What's your point?) Last year I had enough songs left over to make a double album, and this year's CD already has the potential to be a good one. Stay tuned for further details. I may need some help whittling down my still-large collection of songs to a group of around 20 tracks. You'd be surprised how many of them still haven't made it onto one of my holiday mixes. (And hey, if you've got suggestions for songs that just have to be on my mix this year, please email me or post them in the Comments field below.

Anyway, you can bet there will be much more holiday merriment in the coming months so I don't want to overdo it now. But in the meantime, you'd better watch out and you'd better not cry. In fact, you'd better not pout either. One day real soon, I'll tell you why ...