It's that most musical of seasons, when every mall, every store, every supermarket, every building with a speaker system is filled with the sounds of Christmas. They're inescapable, those traditional carols and endless variations of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Christmas Song.”

        Most are bad enough to suck the Christmas spirit out of Jimmy Stewart. But while we can't choose the music being pumped into us by every retailer, at least we can control the CD player at home. Here's a guide to this year's batch of Yule releases to help you avoid the lumps of coal and stick to the good stuff.

        Most holiday discs fall into one of five categories: nostalgic collections from Christmases past, contemporary compilations, single-artist discs, instrumental CDs and the most recent innovation — world music discs.
       

Joy to the World Beat

       

        Reggae and Cajun Christmas albums were all the rage a few years back, and Celtic collections are perennial favorites. This, year, in a sort of Buena Vista Christmas Club, the holidays are swaying to a Latin beat.

        Navidad Cubana (Narada World; $16.98; 3 stars) finds the all-star band Cuba L.A. working rumba, mambo and cha-cha rhythms into a dozen of the usual Yule suspects, among them “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Deck the Halls” and a particularly percussive “Little Drummer Boy.”

        Mambo Santa Mambo: Christmas From the Latin Lounge (Rhino; $17.98; 4 stars) is a compilation from the kings of Christmas kitsch — Rhino Records, the single best source of straight-out weird holiday music.

        This 18-track Latin-flavored collection mixes hot salsa (the Joe Loco Quintet's “Jingle Bells”) with big-band novelties (Billy May's mambo-ized “Rudolph,” Hugo Winterhalter's “The Christmas Song Cha Cha”) and contemporary novelties (Flashcat's remake of “Mambo No. 5” as “December Twenty 5”).

        Throw in some doo-wop in the Enchanters' title cut and a couple of songs by salsa queen Celia Cruz, and you have the year's best Christmas party disc.

        The year's best Celtic Christmas can be found on A Thistle & Shamrock Christmas Ceilidh (Green Linnet; $16.98; 3 1/2 stars), a compilation selected by T&S host Fiona Ritchie.

        The label has some of the best, most varied Celtic artists, so there's maximum variety here, with Spain's Milladorio, Scotland's Tannahill Weavers, Ireland's Patrick Street and the stellar Irish-American fiddler Liz Carroll.

        The 17 tracks are more ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee, it's a sort of Gaelic hoedown) than Christmas (the exceptions being John Renbourn's “I Saw Three Ships” and the Tannahill Weavers' “Auld Lang Syne”), but it's a great collection of joyous music that can be enjoyed year-round.
       

Really Auld Lang Syne

       

        In the nostalgia vein, it's hard to beat Lifetime Music Presents Christmas Belles (Rhino; $17.98 four stars). The 14-song set includes our own Rosemary Clooney, in a 1994 recording of “Christmas Time is Here.”

        Another prominent Cincinnati diva is featured, as Doris Day sings “Silver Bells.” And keeping it a Buckeye holiday, Nancy Wilson does “That's What I Want for Christmas.”

        There's lots of great non-Ohio stuff here as well — Ella Fitzgerald's “Sleigh Ride,” Julie London (who died this year) torches a “Warm December,” while Dinah Washington gets bluesy on “Ole Santa.” Eartha Kitt's sassy evergreen “Santa Baby” makes this one a keeper.

        A Merry Christmas With Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters (MCA/Decca; $11.98; 3 stars ) collects 20 classics. But don't look for “White Christmas” here.

        Instead, the disc includes the six songs Bing recorded with Patty, Maxene and LaVerne, along with seven Crosby solos and seven more by the Andrewses alone, including their palmy Yule log, “Christmas Island.”

        The most recent swing revival may be stiffer than last year's tree, but Yule B' Swingin' Too! (Hip-O; $11.98; 3 1/2 stars) proves that the best swing is immune to fads.

        The 14-song compilation features seasonal jazz classics (Duke Ellington's “Jingle Bells,” Louis Armstrong's “Christmas in New Orleans,” Lionel Hampton's “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus”) with classic pop versions of Yule favorites from Dean Martin, June Christy and the unlikely duet of Ann-Margret and Al Hirt (“Baby It's Cold Outside”).
       

Contemporary collections

       

        Christmas Songs (Nettwerk; $16.98; 3 1/2 stars), offers a folk-flavored Canadian Christmas. It starts with a bang — a tightly swinging “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies that's sure to get a lot of airplay this holiday season.

        The 14-track collection also includes Ms. McLachlan's sensual solo rendition of Gordon Lightfoot's “Song For a Winter's Night.” Her languid phrasing is set against ahead-of-the-beat backup vocals, giving the gentle song a surprising edge.

        The set ranges from Tara MacLean's muted “Winter Wonderland” to Delirium's electro-Middle Eastern “Terra Firma” to the Medieval Baebes' a cappella “Gaudete” to Matthew Ryan's raspy, minimalist “Little Drummer Boy” to Dido's lovely new original, “Christmas Day.” The sole misstep is Maureen Ord's tortuously affected “Christmas Song.”

        The disc closes with Stuart McLean's monologue, “Polly Anderson's Christmas Party.” He's a Canadian Garrison Keillor and it's pretty good the first time, but at 23 minutes, you'll probably want to program around it.

        Sleighed: The Other Side of Christmas (Hip-O; $11.98; 2 1/2) takes an alternative ska-punk tack, with songs from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Local H, Less Than Jake and Goldfinger, old favorites from Beck and Sonic Youth and even older favorites from the Smithereens and Spinal Tap.

        The disc opens with one of the funnier new Yule tunes you won't be hearing on the radio, Red Peters' “You Ain't Getting (expletive) For Christmas.”

        Another Rosie Christmas (Columbia; $18.98; 1 star) is another schmoozefest from talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, who sings very badly with an “A” list including Macy Gray, Smash Mouth, Destiny's Child and Barry Manilow.

        Mostly Rosie takes a backseat to the real singers, but some songs, particularly the Dixie Chicks' great live version of Robert Earl Keen's “Merry Christmas From the Family,” suffer from too much Rosie.

        Jewel and Marc Anthony are the only ones spared a duet with the star. Now that you've been warned, you can be spared, too.

        A Country Superstar Christmas III (Hip-O; 2 1/2 stars) is a relaxed 12-song set that lives up to its title with Alan Jackson (in a western swinging “A Holly Jolly Christmas”), George Strait (also swinging on “Christmas Cookies”), Vince Gill (on an angelic “O Come All Ye Faithful”), Alabama (the sweetly down-home “Christmas in Dixie”) and Reba McEntire (“Silent Night”). But there's also dull filler from Mark Wills and Alecia Elliott.

        You'd have to be Sybil to enjoy the absurdly schizoid All-Star Christmas (Epic; $18.98; 1 star). There's country (Billy Gilman and Asleep at The Wheel's “Rudolph”), pop-classical (Charlotte Church's “Little Drummer Boy”), soul (Al Green's wonderful “I'll Be Home for Christmas”), '80s pop (Wham!'s “Last Christmas”), novelty (Elmo & Patsy's “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”), Latin (Gloria Estefan), pop (Celine Dion), new age (Ottmar Liebert), pretentious '70s guitar heroics (Jeff Beck's “Amazing Grace”) and even some funky folk-blues from Keb Mo.

        Throw in Luther Vandross, Cyndi Lauper, Donny Osmond and Babyface and just about the only genre left un-Yuled is rap. That's a ton of stuff and none of it sounds like it belongs with the others.
       

One act Wonderlands
        This year's hottest pop name with a single-artist disc is Christina Aguilera. On My Kind of Christmas (RCA; $18.97; 3 stars) she turns her considerable chops to a batch of chestnuts, including “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Oh Holy Night” and a soulful “Auld Lang Syne/Merry Christmas, Baby” that features Dr. John's rumbling New Orleans piano and vocals.

        There's also plenty of the synthesized pop that has made her a star, as well as a video of “The Christmas Song” (which is also here in two separate mixes) and some playful electro dance beats on “Xtina's Xmas.”

        The pop queen of another generation, Linda Ronstadt weighs in with A Merry Little Christmas (Elektra; $18.98; 1 star). But there's nothing merry or little on this 12-song set. She's in fine voice and even calls on her old friend Rosemary Clooney for a duet of “White Christmas.”

        But this is two albums in one. It opens with five pop Yule standards, including Joni Mitchell's “River.” Then it's on to nine classical choral arrangements of older songs, opening with “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and closing with “Silent Night.”

        But the arrangements are so grim and overblown they smother any Christmas spirit. Like a heavy holiday meal, this set can cause drowsiness and indigestion.

        Just as Little Brenda Lee (whose “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” he covers here) did in the '50s, 12-year-old Billy Gilman brings a youthful enthusiasm to Yule tunes on his Classic Christmas (Epic; $17.98; 1 star).

        The kid can sing, but he simply lacks the experience to sell the bittersweet nostalgia of “White Christmas” or the sophistication for “The Christmas Song.” When he and fellow prodigy Charlotte Church sing about “When they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie” in their “Sleigh Ride” duet, you can't help but think, “You two should be drinking milk.”

        In all, Classic Christmas is one of the year's more annoying holiday efforts. The generic pop-country arrangements don't help.

        Disappointingly, there's no “Free Reindeer” on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Southern-rocking Christmas Time Again (CMC; $16.98; 2 stars). But the boys do cover Chuck Berry's “Run Run Rudolph,” as well as a couple of other R&B Yule classics, Sir Mack Rice's “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin” and Eddie C. Campbell's “Santa's Messin' With the Kid.” That's the good news.

        The bad is just about everything else, including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” set to a boogie beat and a “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” sung by Charlie Daniels, who was a lot more fun when he brought the devil to Georgia.

        Robert Downey Jr.'s recent relapse gives a bit more edge to Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas (Sony 550; $18.98; 2 1/2). Given his problems with the other “white stuff,” you can't escape the irony of his duet with Ally chanteuse Vonda Shepard on “White Christmas.” But it's his tortured solo version of Joni Mitchell's “River,” that's particularly poignant, as he sings, “I wish I had a river I could skate away on,” and means every word.

        Macy Gray does her raspy “Winter Wonderland” while cast members Jane Krakowski and Lisa Nicole Carson try their hands at Yule standards with mixed results. Ally herself, Calista Flockhart, wisely chose “Santa Baby,” which is cooed, not sung.
       

Wordless Night

        Two of the year's best holiday discs feature instrumental version of Christmas classics.

        Acoustic guitarist John Fahey helped found the new acoustic guitar movement that inspired everyone from Leo Kottke to the folks who started Windham Hill Records.

        He also recorded two of the loveliest, most understated Christmas LPs of all time, both of which have just been re-released on a single CD, The New Possibility: John Fahey's Guitar Solo Christmas Album; Christmas with John Fahey Vol. II (Fantasy/Takoma; $17.98; 4 stars).

        Garrison Keillor fans know pianist Butch Thompson for his elegantly swinging work on A Prairie Home Companion. He recorded the wonderful Yulestride a few years back and now has teamed with cellist Laura Sewell for Bethlehem After Dark (Daring Records; $15.98; 4 stars).

        The 14-song disc gracefully spans classical, jazz, pop and ragtime, ranging from “Ave Maria” to “I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” to Joseph Lamb's “Reindeer Rag.” The two improvise beautifully in this softly exquisite collection.

Have yourself a tuneful little Christmas
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