The McGarrigle sisters haven't made an English-language record of their own songs since 1996's Matapedia, and their presence here is vestigial, to say the least: only three new songs, and another three on which they don't play at all. Their role is more as curators, corrallers of an extended family including Emmylou Harris (on a languid O Little Town of Bethlehem), Teddy Thompson and offspring Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

The sisters' arrangements of traditional carols are sweet enough, though the original material makes you crave a proper new McGarrigle album. Rufus's own Spotlight on Christmas is a cute, sparkly and predictably self-obsessed gallop, but it is Martha's wry Merry Christmas and Happy New Year that wins out for the way it nails the true spirit/peculiar madness of the festive season: "Mom's making dinner for 20 of Rufus's LA friends."

· Download: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year; Wise Men