It is a beautifully crisp and cold Christmas morning here in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. I want to wish all of my readers a blessed and glorious holiday, hopefully, graced by the love of family and friends. Here are a few Christmas presents for all of you delivered via YouTube.

I’ve always enjoyed the now controversial song Baby its Cold Outside. With its reputation tarnished by the “Me Too” movement, it remains (unless clumsily brought “up to date” by over-sensitive types) an extremely clever dialog between two people flirting in a way that was perfectly understandable as innocent for of us that grew up in the 50s and ’60s, but now vilified as inappropriate.

Written by Frank Loesser, for many years it was performed only at parties by the author, with Loesser’s wife Lynn Garland singing the female part. It was apparently quite a hit on the cocktail circuit.

Here’s a version with the classic Dean Martin vocal track remastered to feature Martina Mc Bride as the female part. No one does sleazy better than Dean.

Here’s is another take, a more contemporary version, this time by Natalie Cole and James Taylor.

Finally a wonderful clip from the show “Sing Off” with a truly unique arrangement performed by Ben Folds, and a favorite of mine, Sara Bareilles:

In the years since this aired, the song has been recorded multiple times horribly butchered so that it can conform to modern sensibilities. I won’t post links to any of these versions, they’re just too painful.

Once again, I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season.