Finding the right mix key to holiday music

Agner’s company has tried to incorporate the best of both with funky, chill-out remixes of old favorites on the new CD “Merry Mixmas.”

“You’re getting those songs and those artists that you know and love, but basically, you’re getting them as a twist, seen through a new set of eyes, and we thought that was a great way of basically having it both ways,” he says.

It’s also important to time the tempo of the evening with the music.

“If it’s a dinner party, where people are going to stay and want to talk throughout the rest of the night, you can’t go too dancey,” says Dahlia Ambach-Caplin, a Verve Records executive and producer of its “Verve Remixed” series, which give jazz classics a modern spin. “People won’t be able to hear one another.”

Frampton agrees. Think about Christmas music as you would any other music when planning the evening, he advises.

“If you were going to have a dinner party ... during a salad course, would you have a bunch of rousing singalongs?”

It also might be good to add some non-holiday songs to the rotation.

“Everywhere you go during the holidays, you hear Christmas music ad nauseam,” says Ambach-Caplin. “Not everyone wants to listen to Christmas music all day all the time.”

And as on any other evening of entertaining, it’s important to know your audience and which songs will elicit a knowing smile — or a grimace. Cheech & Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Old Lady” might be a riot for your friends, but raise eyebrows at an office party.

Perhaps the worst offense is repetition: As enchanting as “The Christmas Song” is, even Nat King Cole can get stale after a gazillion listens.

“That’s the biggest challenge, for people to find something that they really like that’s fresh,” says Agner. “You don’t want to be only playing ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’ ... Although at the right time, that song might be the perfect thing to throw into the mix.”

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