Yeah, yeah, I know—I have mixed feelings—okay, mostly negative—about holiday music. There are a few songs I like, but most are just so much treacly, sappy mush, like over-cooked macaroni. And then of course there’s all the emotional baggage that anything associated with this time of year has to carry.

But still, some people like holiday music. Especially when it may offer a fresh take on some tunes that you thought had been done to death. It is in that spirit that I offer a link to the Garritan Christmas Music Player. Here is an entire album of holiday music free for the downloading, including cover art, CD label, and liner notes.

The Garritan community is composed of musicians using the Garritan Personal Orchestra sample libraries. You may not be aware of how much orchestral sample libraris have progressed recently—just this morning I was reading of a commercially available library weighing in at over 550 GB, including over 800,000 individual samples. With that kind of heft, it may not be surprising that a single musician can deliver the sound of an entire orchestra with stunning realism and massive presence. Not that just any musician could do that, of course—the people featured on the Garritan Christmas page are way beyond competent. And they are from all over the world, not just Americans and Britons, but people from Iceland and Slovenia, you name it.

Besides this year’s collection, Volume 3, previous collections are also available. I also see there is a MySpace page for the album. It’s not really my cup of tea (my warped childhood, I suppose), but it’s worth a listen just for the amazing sound quality. Every once in a while a section may sound a little bit keyboard-y, but mostly it sounds like the best-recorded orchestra you ever heard. Pretty much took my breath away. And if you’re stuck for a quick gift for somebody, you can’t beat the price of this album.