Did you spot some of your holiday favorites in there? I'm sure you did. And I'm sure you also ran into an awful lot of songs/covers you've either never heard of before or ones you instantly rolled your eyes at.

Ultimately, that last bit is the main problem with these discs. Like every CD in the "NOW" line, the mix of artists, music genres and styles is so eclectic that while it ensures that every disc will feature: A) a few songs that you, the unique listener, will really like, B) a few songs you may tolerate and C) many more you will probably hate and skip over every time. When you've got a CD set that features tracks from Luciano Pavarotti, *NSYNC, Chuck Berry, Amy Grant, Dean Martin, B2K, Barry Manilow and Wham! all on the same release, you're bound to wind up without any listener possessing the same level of interest in every song in the collection.

To gauge the value of each disc individually, I put them to the ultimate yuletide test: I played each disc, back-to-back, while my wife and I decorated our Christmas tree and filled out Christmas cards this year. So which discs provided the best, uninterrupted Christmas ambiance? And which discs had me feeling like Ebenezer Scrooge, constantly reaching for the "skip" button on the stereo remote?

Well, I can honestly say that the remote laid untouched for most of the first disc of Volume 1 (right up until "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer," to be exact). After that, though, that "skip" button saw even more use than the pen I was using to write "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" on each of our Christmas cards.

Volume 2 labels its discs "Now and Forever" (meaning "newer" songs) and "Then and Always" ("older," more "classic" tunes). The distinction holds true for the other two volumes for the most part, though it's not spelled out as such. Call me old fashioned but I found many more enjoyable songs on the "Then and Always" discs than the "Now and Forever" ones. Seriously, do they expect us to really consider Britney Spears' "My Only Wish (This Year)" or *NSYNC's "You Don't Have to Be Alone (On Christmas)" to be for "now and forever?" They're already horribly dated-sounding and it's been only a few years since their release.

Volume 1 contains in its liner notes a brief few sentences essentially explaining why each track was chosen to be included in the two-disc mix. It's a nice way to get a few nuggets of information about each song and serves to justify each tunes' presence on the album. Volume 2 also has some text associated with each song title in the liner notes, however these blurbs are of a very different nature. Instead of interesting and sometimes educational factoids, these blurbs are little bits of fluffy marketing drivel.