When I was a kid our musical selections were limited to the few dozen records my parents stored next to the stereo turntable in the living room. We lived on a farm in rural Washington County. The nearest mall or music store was at least 45 minutes away. There was no internet or cable television. Our options were few.

Fortunately, the bulk of my parents’ music collection contained albums by the Beatles – and therein lay enough music to last a lifetime. You could spend months in deep study of the kaleidoscopic carnival ride that was “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” before moving on to the intricacies of the “White Album” or “Abbey Road.”

When it came time for Christmas, for some reason “Meet the Beatles!” became our de facto soundtrack, and my favorite holiday memories from early childhood involve decorating the Christmas tree while Paul and John sang “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “All I’ve Got to Do” and “I Saw Her Standing There.”

Now that I’m an adult, with access to hundreds of albums and CDs – plus a nearly infinite library of songs on streaming services – I’ve had a chance to pore over the many multitudes of holiday song offerings and narrow my holiday playlist on Spotify to a mere 477 songs. Kidding. No, not really.

It turns out there are a lot of great holiday and winter-themed songs to fill that playlist.

Looking for jazz? There’s “Greensleeves,” the traditional English folk song performed by jazz great Coleman Hawkins, or “My Favorite Things,” the song from “The Sound of Music” that John Coltrane transformed into a swirling, hypnotic jazz number. And the entire album of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi is a classic, especially his signature “Linus and Lucy.”

Like hip-hop? In addition to “Christmas Rappin’ ” by Kurtis Blow, “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-D.M.C. is a classic of the genre. The rollicking song samples Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa” while painting a vivid portrait of Christmas Eve in Hollis, Queens, where “Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens.”

Like funk and soul? There’s “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” by James Brown, “Who Took the Merry out of Christmas” by the Staple Singers and “Purple Snowflakes” by Marvin Gaye. Why are the snowflakes purple? I like to imagine the narrator looking out the window while Christmas lights flash blue and red, casting a violet glow upon the falling white snow.

For rock ’n’ roll, some of my playlist favorites are “Father Christmas” by the Kinks, “Come on Christmas” by Cheap Trick and Joey Ramone’s revved-up cover of Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s version of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” recorded live in 1975 in Greenvale, New York, seems especially joyous, maybe because the Boss laughs through half of it. And in a time of war, “Happy Xmas War Is Over” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono never fails to stir emotion – and the hope that someday people will collectively decide to will peace into existence.

Bob Dylan’s 2009 polka-meets-klezmer cover of “Must Be Santa” is a modern-day holiday classic. As is anything from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ genius 2015 “It’s a Holiday Soul Party” album. And Phil Spector’s “A Christmas Gift for You” featuring the great girl-groups of the ‘60s, including the Ronettes, the Crystals and Darlene Love, never gets old.

Sad holiday music is its own genre, and there is no sadder – and no better – holiday tearjerker than Prince’s “Another Lonely Christmas,” released as a B-side during the “Purple Rain” era. Not only is the narrator grieving the absence of their favorite person, that person died on the 25th of December. “Every Christmas night for seven years now, I drink banana daiquiris ’til I’m blind,” Prince sings.

On a happier note, we come to my favorite Christmas song of all time. Drum roll…

It is “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses. The unlikely 1981 hit by the short-lived Akron, Ohio, new-wave band starts with a delicate jingling of bells before a revved-up guitar kicks in, and the tune gets upbeat and peppy from there, despite the “bah, humbug” attitude of singer Patty Donahue.

What’s got her down? Missed connections with a dude she likes, so she’s decided to spend the holiday alone. But the song has a happy ending, and the star-crossed lovers run into each other in the cranberry aisle of the all-night grocery.

The song takes on special poignancy this year with the November death of saxophone player Mars Williams, who played the tune’s triumphant sax part and then later joined the Psychedelic Furs.

Two months before he died from cancer, Williams played an energetic and effervescent show with the Furs at The Egg in Albany in September. A swan song.

What’s your favorite holiday song? Contact Kirsten Ferguson at theupstatebeat@gmail.com.

The Week Ahead

Blues-punk songwriter Dmitry Wild, who was born in Moscow but lived in New York City before more recently moving to Hudson, brings swagger and old-school rock ‘n’ roll style to No Fun in Troy tonight, with Blaise Debris and the Dionysus Effect opening. 7 p.m.

Favorite local folk trio Lost Radio Rounders present a special Holiday Sampler seasonal program at Caffè Lena on Friday, singing songs of yesteryear while telling the fascinating stories behind them. 8 p.m.

Rockabilly master Johnny Rabb teams with father-son guitar duo the Tichy Boys (featuring John Tichy of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, and Graham Tichy of the Swingin’ Palms) for an annual rockin’ Christmas show at the Hangar on the Hudson in Troy. 7 p.m.

Another holiday show with an uber-talented roster of local musicians takes place Saturday at No Fun in Troy when the wonderfully quirky indie-rock band Pony in the Pancake hosts a holiday show with Haley Moley, Los Espejos, Stroma, the A.M.’s, Nathan Meltz and the House of Tomorrow, and Cooper’s Hawk. 7 p.m.

Folk punk hero Ed Hamell of Hamell on Trial returns to the area on Wednesday to celebrate the post-Christmas holiday hangover at the Hollow Bar + Kitchen in Albany as only he can, with music and words both intelligent and irreverent. 7 p.m.