Various Artists

Sarah McLachlan fans looking for a glad tide-me-over until her next album will rejoice in this compilation of Canadian acts strolling through holiday standards. The disc opens with a satisfying rendering of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” with Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson, Steven Page, and McLachlan making like Peter, Paul, and Mary. McLachlan turns up later with a crackerjack cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night.”

Elsewhere on the Lilith-by-the hearth front, Tara MacLean’s rustic “Winter Wonderland” sounds like a pleasantly unaffected version of one of Jewel’s overheated 1999 Christmas recordings, and Dido’s “Christmas Day” is dramatic but equally low-key.

Meryn Cadell’s “The Cat Carol” loses no pathos for being a children’s folk song; in fact, anyone not already full of eggnog who takes note of Bruce Evans’ lyrics will have too big a lump in the throat to drink more of the stuff. Lily Frost’s “Skating on the River” is more winsome and has a happier ending. Both are well-rendered nontraditional songs that stand up well next to such fare as “Ave Maria” (which, from Jennifer McLaren, is admittedly an informal reading). Only Matthew Ryan, whose own songs fit his Springsteen-like wheeze much better, stumbles, with a version of “The Little Drummer Boy” that sounds as if Ryan were miked while shoveling a parking lot. Otherwise, this cohesive gem is genuinely wintry.