By Larry Nager
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Buy the wrong holiday CDs and all you can do is pull a Martha Stewart and try to shred them into expensive tinsel. Spend your money wisely - we know it's tight this year - and you will have musical fuel for your Yule for years to come.

The two acid tests for the best holiday CDs take polar opposite tacks. Ask yourself:

1. Is the music so good that you could listen to it at the beach in July?

2. Does it scream "Christmas" with such authority that you couldn't imagine listening to it in any other season?

With both questions in mind, here are our favorite new holiday CDs.

Yule swing

THE GYPSY HOMBRES

Django Bells

Memphis International, $16.98

4 stars

The year's best new Christmas album - sweet and swinging, warm and witty. The Gypsy Hombres are top Nashville pickers (including fiddler extraordinaire Peter Hyrka, formerly of Human Radio and the Sky Kings) with a taste for Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and the suave, cafe jazz of 1930s Paris.

Combine that sensibility with a solid set of Yule standards and you get a klezmer/tango "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and a "Jingle Bells" that includes a taste of Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here." Django Bells is vibrant, dynamic music that just happens to have a holiday theme. C'est un Joyeux Noel magnifique!

CHRISTMAS ALBUMS

The 12 best-selling Christmas albums 1. Miracles: The Holiday Album, Kenny G (Arista; 1994) 8 million 2. Elvis' Christmas Album, Elvis Presley (RCA; 1957 LP, 1990 CD) 7 million 3. A Christmas Album, Barbra Streisand (Columbia; 1967 LP, 1990 CD) 5 million 4. A Fresh Aire Christmas, Mannheim Steamroller (American Gramaphone; 1988) 5 million 5. Christmas, Mannheim Steamroller (American Gramaphone; 1984) 5 million 6. Merry Christmas, Johnny Mathis (Columbia; 1958 LP, 1990 CD) 5 million 7. A Very Special Christmas, Various (A&M; 1989) 4 million 8. Christmas in the Aire, Mannheim Steamroller (American Gramaphone; 1995) 4 million 9. Christmas Through the Years, Various (Readers Digest Music; 1984) 4 million 10. Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey (Columbia; 1994) 4 million 11. Now That's What I Call Christmas, Various (Universal; 2001) 4 million 12. These Are Special Times, Celine Dion (Epic; 1998) 4 million Source: Recording Industry Association of America

ELLA FITZGERALD

Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

Verve; $17.98

4 stars

No jazz singer could do Christmas like Ella. The woman whose easy swing and masterful phrasing turned "A-Tisket A-Tasket" into a jazz classic works her magic on 15 seasonal standards recorded in 1959 and 1960, when she was in her mature prime. Along with the usual Yule suspects - "White Christmas," "The Christmas Song," "Sleigh Ride" - Ms. Fitzgerald also swings Kalikimaka (Hawaiian for "Christmas") on "Christmas Island" and gets down in the alley for "Christmas Blues." The big band is led by Frank DeVol, who'd also worked with Cincinnati divas Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day.

Ellla Wishes You a Swinging Christmas is a deluxe package, combining her full 1960 LP of the same title with a couple of Yule 45s (including one released only in England). Throw in three alternate takes and it's a must-have, heirloom-quality jazz holiday CD.

Alt-Xmas

VARIOUS

Maybe This Christmas

Nettwerk Records; $17.98

3 1/2 stars

The alt-rock holiday set includes the fine original title song by Ron Sexsmith, Jimmy Eat World's "12 / 23 / 95," Jack Johnson's folky "Ru- dolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the fine folk-pop of the previously released Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan collaboration on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

O Santa, where art thou?

PATTY LOVELESS

Bluegrass and White Snow

Epic; $17.98

4 stars

This is sort of a sequel to Emmylou Harris' 1979 Christmas classic Light of the Stable. Produced by Ms. Loveless' husband, Emory Gordy Jr. (Ms. Harris' bassist on the earlier project), Bluegrass and White Snow is a warm, soulful set of acoustic holiday favorites, including Bill Monroe's "Christmas Times A-Comin," the bluegrass equivalent of "White Christmas."

Ms. Loveless, an Eastern Kentucky native, has long been one of the best singers in country music, with a deep, womanly, soulful tone that sets her apart.

She shines on this near-perfect album, blending touches of Celtic and classical music with the mountain sounds.

There's a gorgeous arrangement of "Carol of the Bells" by the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble, who back Ms. Loveless on "The First Noel" with equally exquisite results.

Throw in backup vocals by Ms. Harris, Dolly Parton and Ricky Skaggs and a superb backup band (including Cincinnatian Tim Hensley) and you have a brand-new classic.

This isn't just the best bluegrass Yule, but the best one to come out of Nashville, period, beating out Alan Jackson's relentlessly sappy Let It Be Christmas by a country mile.

VARIOUS

Christmas Grass

Audium; $17.98

4 stars

Top bluegrass pickers (Ricky Skaggs, Ronnie McCoury, Alison Krauss, Rob Ickes, Stuart Duncan and, on a local note, former Yankee Grey fiddler Joe Caverlee) apply their considerable talents to 14 instrumentals and one vocal ("O Holy Night" featuring the Larkins). Great stuff anytime of year.

Tinsel Twang

LOS STRAITJACKETS

Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets

Yep Roc; $16.98

3 1/2 stars

Hang 10 on the Yule log with this twangin', surfin' Christmas disc. If you've worn out your copy of The Ventures' Christmas Album, this is the next best thing. The Mexican wrestling-masked instrumental rockers pay tribute to their forefathers with a dead-on cover of the Ventures "Sleigh Ride," but remain true to that band's spirit on the 12 other reverb-marinated cuts as well. A fun batch of Christmas tunes that rock.

Celtic Celebrations

VARIOUS

The Best of Celtic Christmas

Narada; $18.98

4 stars

This double-disc set lives up to its title, but it's not just the best Celtic holiday music, it's also the best holiday music bargain. The first CD is a 15-track Who's Who collection that includes veterans like Steeleye Span's Maddy Prior, DeDannan's Frankie Gavin, guitar master El McMeen and the Boys of the Lough. Young Canadian fiddle virtuoso Natalie McMaster is also here, with her guest Alison Krauss. Toss in a Riverdance-size cast of world-class harpists, singers, fiddlers and accordionists and a couple of medieval-styled choirs and you have a disc Celtic music lovers will play all year.

The second disc is also excellent, featuring the award-winning Irish quartet Dordain's album, The Night Before. . . A Celtic Christmas.

Smooth Yule

CHRIS BOTTI

December

Sony; $18.98

3 stars

Like every pretty, blond jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti wants to be the late singer/trumpeter Chet Baker. But not even Mr. Botti's breathy, puny vocals on two of the 13 songs here can ruin the season's best smooth-jazz Yule. December is at its best when Mr. Botti lets his horn do the singing, and he shines on "The Christmas Song," "Let It Snow" and a sweetly muted "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

But he has a few tricks that make this holiday set stand out. He gives a bossa nova lilt to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and, best of all, makes an unexpected carol out of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," backed only by bass and guitar (the latter played by former Bruce Springsteen sideman Shane Fontayne). The finale, "I'll Be Home for Christmas," is the only instrumental misstep, grafting on the relentless arpeggios of the Police's "Every Breath You Take." He should have closed the set with his shimmering, reflective "Silent Night."

Purists may balk, but more liberal jazz fans will find plenty to celebrate in December.

Non-Christmas

ELLEN KUSHNER AND THE SHIRIM KLEZMER ORCHESTRA

The Golden Dreydel: A Klezmer Nutcracker for Chanukah

Rykodisc; $16.98

4 stars

Ellen Kushner, host of public radio's Sound & Spirit, wrote and narrates a modern, magical Jewish tale set against Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite radically rearranged by the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra for the lurching, joyous rhythms of Eastern European klezmer music. Here the delicate "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" mutates into the tipsy swagger of "Dance of the Latkes Queen" for a holiday CD unlike anything you've ever heard.

Christmas Past

VARIOUS

Once Upon a Holiday

Soundies; $15.98

3 1/2 stars

This Chicago-based nostalgia label specializes in unreleased radio transcriptions from the '30s and '40s. What better time for nostalgia than now?

This 15-track CD is a near perfect musical Ghost of Christmas Past.

The set opens with Mel Torme's immortal "Christmas Song" and includes Lawrence Welk's "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph," plus a couple by the Modernaires, including the "Jingle Bell Polka." Classical/jazz violinist Eddie South does a lavish "Snowfall," while fans of classic country will love a couple of very rare holiday recordings, the Prairie Ramblers "Cowboy Santa Claus" and Pee Wee King's "Rootin' Tootin' Santa Claus."

Party parodies

BOB RIVERS

White Trash Christmas

Atlantic; $17.98

3 1/2 stars

The latest twisted Christmas from this Seattle DJ is the year's best Christmas comedy. The cover - a take-off on the Bing Crosby classic LP - sets the tone for a dozen dead-on parodies, from "Aquaclaus" to "Osama Got Run Over By a Reindeer" to "Be Claus I Got High" to "Have Yourself an Ozzy Little Christmas" ("Let the F word fly.") and the smooth R&B of "Me and Mrs. Claus."

E-mail lnager@enquirer.com