The best deal on music for the holidays

Nothing gets me in the holiday mood more than some good Christmas music. Ok, a plateful of sugar cookies and a Chick-fil-A peppermint chocolate chip milkshake work just as well but generally, it's the music.

Each year I like to add to my holiday music collection but, truth be told, I don't like to spend a lot of money because I only get to listen to the music for such a short period of time before it's out of season.

And I try to avoid the bargain bin CDs I see in the store because I can't preview the music and I'm often disappointed with what I get.

But you all know I'm a techie and probably have a solution to all of this, right? Give yourself 10 points if you said yes.

It's called the Amazon's MP3 Store and right now they are offering 100 Holiday Albums for $5 Each. And not just junk albums no one listens to. They have holiday albums like White Christmas by Martina McBride, James Taylor at Christmas and my favorite local group, Straight No Chaser.

If you have kids, there's plenty of options for them as well like John Denver & The Muppets and Christmas With The Chipmunks.

Not only are these albums affordable but they meet my criteria of being able to preview the music to make sure you like it before purchasing the album. Just click on the album cover on Amazon's website and you'll find previews of every single song on the album.

Just keep in mind, these are digital versions of the album, not actual CDs you can play in your CD player. But you can play them on your MP3 player, iPod or even your smart phone with Amazon's Cloud Player.

Amazon also makes it really easy to import the MP3 titles into iTunes if you wish to burn your own holiday mix to CD for enjoying in your car. That's what I do.