Christ and Pop Culture writers share their reflections on their favorite Christmas carols, and how, all kitsch and schmaltz aside, they bring meaning to the holiday every year.

By turns silly and serious, reverent and irreverent, traditional and experimental, Sufjan’s Christmas music handily transcends that schmaltz that so often passes for Christmas music these days.

The venerable indie-rock trio deliver some of the best Christmas music of the season in this concert recording.

Nebraska’s unpredictable weather comes through again.

Mimi Parker’s lovely voice makes “Some Hearts (at Christmas Time)” another fine Christmas tune from the slowcore pioneers.

Sufjan reminds us to acknowledge the silly and the sublime during the Christmas season.

Also: Living in a hologram, Halo’s storytelling shortcomings, Sanjay’s Super Team, and Star Wars economics.

Also: Christmas music, the Internet and our own sinfulness, Guardians of the Galaxy, and real life superheroes.

Want to see this work of art in real life? Come to Redeemer’s Christmas program on December 14.

As rough and shambling, and ultimately as haunting, as any of his album’s material.

When I read stories like this, I find myself incapable of summoning up any concern or outrage regarding the “war on Christmas.”