Some people will be bored by A Dave Brubeck Christmas given that it’s an album of solo piano. But the piano has long been my favorite instrument, so I think this stuff is pretty great. There’s always a danger with that kind of thing sounding “loungey”, like you’re being serenaded by a guy wearing a tuxedo at Nordstrom’s. But Brubeck is a legend, and his skill shines through on this album.

I picked this album kind of randomly, and I don’t actually know who Heather Henry is. She doesn’t seem to have an internet presence, and I’m pretty sure this album is self-produced (or at least self-distributed). It shows in the production. Here’s some advice to prospective home-producers: If you can’t get your hands on some real instruments, keep the digital versions to a bare minimum. Sadly, it’s too late to help Ms. Henry.

With a title like A Rocky Mountain Christmas, you might expect a record smothered in banjo, backwoods, and moonshine. And there’s a little of that quality here, but on the whole, this is a very restrained, professional album with some excellent songs. Denver’s take on “What Child Is This” is worthy of being a standard, and most of the album is done in a similar accoustic style. The producer occasionally throws in some gratuitous twinkling, but it never overpowers Denver’s low key performance.

The harp isn’t an instrument you think about very often, probably only entering your thoughts if you happen to see or hear one. No one’s clamoring for the makers of Rock Band to add a harp controller. And yet, there’s no denying that it is a beautiful instrument. The question is, do you want to listen to an entire album’s worth of songs played exclusively on the harp?

I’ve never been a “fan” of James Taylor, but I haven’t disliked him either. So I thought maybe a Christmas album might be just the right place for, as The Simpsons described it, his “unique brand of bittersweet folk rock.” But it turns out, Taylor’s voice is just all wrong for the winter holidays. It’s too warm.

I started this project with a rule for myself: if I listen to part of a track, I have to listen to the entire album. It’s Day 2, and I already regret that decision because it means I had to listen to this terrible collection of electronic kitsch. Honestly, do people actually enjoy this sort of thing? It’s just so awful. The overall effect is of a synthesizer orchestra backing a music box.

I was a big fan of Shelby Lynne’s 2008 release “Just a Little Lovin’”, a tribute and homage to Dusty Springfield. Some of that quality flows through to her new Christmas album, Merry Christmas, including a strange other-worldliness — Lynne sounds like she belongs in a a different era. I figured that would bode well for a holiday album, but there’s something missing here.

The first Christmas CD I ever bought was by The Canadian Brass, but I don’t generally feel like this form lends itself to repeated Christmas listening. You expect to hear a small brass band playing this way at the mall while you do your shopping, and that’s pretty much the effect you get with the creatively titled Christmas by a group called Synergy Brass Quintet, whom I’d never heard of but claim to be the busiest classical music group working today.