Aimee Mann never seemed like one of pop's 500 likeliest candidates to release a Christmas album, but last year’s One More Drifter in the Snow was a tasteful, minor-key treat, and her “1st Annual Christmas Show” at the Birchmere last December was one of the best concerts of 2006. As she promised she would at the end of last year’s freewheeling interfaith revue, she's hitched up the sleigh again this year for a monthlong yule-tour that landed for the first of two shows at the Birchmere last night. As before, the show mingled seasonal fare with secular material from Mann’s deep songbook, music with comedy, and Christmas with Hanukkah. Kind of.

SPOILER WARNING: The show is a pretty highly-scripted affair, so If you're attending tonight, etc., etc.

New this year is a three-part video chronicling Aimee’s search among her many celebrity pals to find people willing to round out her Christmas-show lineup. (Last year's model was emceed by Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen, who would seem likely to have more time on his hands this year what with the writers’ strike and all; stepping ably into his patent-leather shoes is Paul F. Thompkins of Mr. Show, er, semi-fame.) The video, featuring appearances by John Krasinski of the The Office, former Mann tour-mate Patton Oswalt, Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, brought yuks aplenty, but wasn't quite funny enough to make us forget the fact that more than a quarter of a show that ran only slightly over two hours was pre-recorded. (Not to mention the fact that the smallish video screen was probably impossible for anyone in the seats on either side of the stage to see.)

It would be unkind to harp on this, but Mann was suffering last night from a case of laryngitis severe enough to prompt her to cancel a planned NPR webcast of the show, and of course, the show suffered, too. Mann apologized for her voice repeatedly, even interrupting her froggy performance of “Wise Up” mid-song, and appeared genuinely anguished over her inability to control her vocal tone. She’d only just finished her second song, “Jacob’s Marley’s Chain,” when she was compelled to tell us she'd had a steroid injection for her throat because she’d sounded like Joe Cocker earlier in the week. Sure enough, she sang only one more number — a funny duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with the good-natured Thompkins — before retreating backstage to drink tea while Thompkins held the crowd rapt with the story of the very first Christmas. Well, actually, it was the story of how he came to stop smoking pot, but it was still a good story.

Guest musicians Ben Lee and Nellie McKay partially filled the void, performing humorous two and three-song sets, respectively, but it was still disappointing (and probably unusual) that the show featured a mere 13 songs sung or even partly sung by Mann herself, though there would seem to be little she could do about it. (The finale of "Chrismas (Baby Please Come Home)" actually featured more vocals from Thompkins than it did from Mann. "31 Today" and another new song came from an unnamed album Mann said would be released in March. They sounded, well, like Aimee Mann songs, muted and introspective, "31 Today" featuring the refrain, “I thought my life would be different somehow.”

Probably the most exciting moment for Mann diehards (and the Birchmere is indeed where they live; Mann reliably sells out two nights here even when she plays only a single night in similarly-sized venues in most markets) was when the self-deprecating star made a rare call for requests: “Since I sound like Bea Arthur,” she said, she might as well offer fans the opportunity to choose the next song she would destroy. Several calls for “The Other End of the Telescope,” first prompted her to object, “Oh, there are so many words in that song” (no surprise there; the uber-locquatious Elvis Costello wrote the lyrics over Mann’s melody), but she agreed to try it in a lower key than usual, and the result was one of the best performances of the night.

Not the best, however. That honor went to the Hanukkah Fairy (comedienne Morgan Murphy), reluctant torch-bearer for God's Chosen People: “When I say ‘Loehmann’s’, you say, ‘I shop there!’” Her affably profane hip-hop version of the Story of Hanukkah probably wouldn’t have made it onto NPR in any recognizable form, but it did prove it's possible simultaneously to light up the temple and rock the house.