Apple is in the giving spirit this holiday season, as well. They are now offering 20 free holiday themed songs through iTunes in the form of an LP album. These songs include classics like “Silent Night,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and “We Three Kings.” If you’re looking to get into the holiday spirit this month, this may be the best and cheapest way to do so.

Want to create your very own iTunes LP? If The Boy Genius Report’s source is to be trusted, it sounds like you’ll have the tools to do so in the next version of iLife. The rumor states that, among other complete overhauls in the iLife suite, iDVD will have the tools to create your own iTunes LP, and then submit it to Apple. These tools are supposed to come with what we can tentatively refer to as iLife 2010.

Today, Apple announced the launch of the 3.0 software upgrade for its Apple TV, which offers a redesigned user interface and compatibility with Apple’s recently released iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, along with Genius Mixes and Internet radio. Shortly thereafter, Apple also released iTunes 9.0.2, which adds support for Apple TV’s 3.0 software, a new “dark” viewing option for Grid View, and additional accessibility support.

At first glance, iTunes LP seems like an interesting new way to revive some of the sales of records. They offer the same songs available as single/album downloads on other stores, but also provide their own visual twist on the content, making them different (and more expensive) than simply purchasing the list of songs. But new restrictions discovered about this type of media may show this isn’t going to be quite as successful as previously thought.

After killing the album with the a la carte design of iTunes, Apple has decided to resuscitate it with the iTunes LP: users pay for an entire album, and get a boatload of extras: liner notes, videos, visualizers, and whatever extras the labels (and artists themselves) decide to include. But how does an iTunes LP work? Web developer Jay Robinson decided to find out.

Apple has just released the latest version of iTunes at the September 9th event in San Francisco. iTunes 9 has some new welcome features, including the ability to organize your iPhone and iPod touch applications within iTunes to sync across to your device.