Dinner is as down home as family, and about the most family-ish music is folk.

The cleaned-up version of folk sounds like the pretty young people sync-ing and storytelling of The New Christy Minstrels with their moralizing  “Parson Brown.” It’s a skit! It’s a song! It’s a swell Christmas dinner!

Pop folk sounds like little minister Dustin Donovan with his “Christmas Dinner 2011.” It’s a parable about a peeping poor boy and the shut-in he shares with. And it’s beautifully sung (if not filmed). Think about the homeless while ye be stuffing yer face! Retaining an Old World twinkle, Peter Paul and Mary strum out the original to this instructional tale: “Christmas Dinner.” This looks hard at the poor and the suffering… no comic reprisals. That’s more Christ-like, more honest folk. This is largely Noel Paul Stookey, so here’s his solo of the same: