Advent Caroling Madness

You just never know when you might have the best idea in the history of, like, ever.

I was driving to lunch today, listening to this:

Elaine and I have been binging on Pentatonix lately. I’m really enjoying them, and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is one of my favorite Advent/Christmas carols. I started wondering if this version was my most favorite version of the song, and then…synapses aligned, the clouds parted, angels started singing. I posted on Facebook, “It’s too bad there isn’t anyone around me, because there HAS to be a gigantic light bulb floating over my head right now.”

Sure, E = mc² is pretty good. Putting chocolate chips in cookie dough for the first time, even better. But today, I do believe I have put them both to shame.

I know how I will celebrate Advent beautifully this year, and I invite you to join in. Each week of Advent, I’ll be on a mission to find the best version of a particular Christmas Carol.  What better way to do that then setting up a bracket, and battling it out day by day throughout the week? I’ll post the bracket…and you can do what all sports fans do in March, argue about the injustice of the bracket and the stupidity of the committee (ie. me) who set it up. Then, each day I’ll recount for you the ins and outs of each epic battle, until we watch one version of the carol cut down the nets and move on to the Final Four. We will finish it off with one epic battle between the best versions of four dearly loved carols, competing for the title of the best carol of 2013.

So here we go! Advent Week One will be the “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” region. Tuesday night, I will post the seeds and the bracket with 8 versions of the song. I know the bracket will contain Pentatonix, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Civil Wars, Wendy Goodwin and Company, and Barlow Girl…BUT I WANT YOUR INPUT. What version of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” would you nominate for the bracket? (If I get enough good responses, I might need to have a play in game, or who knows, maybe a 16 version bracket…)

So send me your suggestions, as a comment on the blog or on Facebook, and I’ll announce the bracket Tuesday night!