Album: Indigo Girls, Holly Happy Days (Vanguard)

Christmas is an American state of mind.

Here it is in folksy-feminist mode, a redemptive season in which warmth and good cheer abide like the squares in a good quilt and an ecumenical God drops in for a toddy and a snifter of harmony. The Indigos put palm to sternum and tell it like it ought to be, with an accomplished bunch of players (Victor Krauss, Alison Brown...), including carols, originals and "classics". All charmingly domestic and executed (in Nashville) with the exercise of the best possible taste.