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Taylor Swift is the darling of the Billboard country charts this last reporting period before Christmas. Her single, “Our Song,” holds at No. 1 for the second week, her self-titled album moves back to the No. 2 spot in its 60th week out and four selections from her Christmas album, Sounds of the Season, are twinkling on the lower branches of the song chart.

The week’s highest charting new song is the Garth Brooks-Huey Lewis romp, “Workin’ for a Livin‘,” which enters at No. 50. That’s a worthy leap but pale in comparison to Brooks‘ “More Than a Memory,” the first single from his current album, which debuted at No. 1.

The Eagles continue their long run at the summit of the albums chart with Long Road Out of Eden. According to the latest Nielsen Soundscan measurement, that collection has sold more than 2.2 million copies in just seven weeks.

There are no new albums this week, but three former chart dwellers have returned to the list: Rodney Carrington’s King of the Mountain (No. 70), Larry the Cable Guy’s Morning Constitutions (No. 71) and the multi-artist Original American Classics: Country Greats (No. 74).

In addition to the Brooks-Lewis duet, there are two new songs: Sugarland’s “Winter Wonderland” (No. 58) and Swift’s “White Christmas” (No. 59).

Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride, Brooks‘ The Ultimate Hits and Rascal Flatts‘ Still Feels Good round out the Top 5 albums in that order. The remaining Top 5 songs, also in descending order, are Josh Turner’s “Firecracker,” George Strait’s “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls,” Montgomery Gentry’s “What Do Ya Think About That” and Sugarland’s “Stay.”

Kenny Chesney’s hard-charging “Shiftwork” barrels from No. 34 to No. 25.

Now it’s back to the mall.

~Courtesy of CMT.com

When the smoke was cleared and all the numbers were counted, SoundScan reported that Carrie Underwood’s new CD, Carnival Ride, sold 527,101 copies during its first week of release to place the American Idol queen at No. 1 on Billboard country albums chart and the Billboard 200 pop chart. It sets a record as the highest first week sales in SoundScan history for a sophomore country album, and it also gives her the highest selling debut week of any female artist in 2007. Her digital sales soared to 44,928 in the first week, the largest country debut in digital album chart history.

Just so you know, Rascal Flatts‘ sales debut a few weeks ago was 546,505, the highest so far in 2007. Also of interest, Raising Sand, the new album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, sold 112,308 units in its first week out. This doesn’t seem like we’re falling behind in CD sales, does it? By the way, when Carrie was told her numbers, she acknowledged the people who are truly responsible for her success and said, “I want to share a sincere thanks to all my fans for supporting me over the past two years and for making my dreams come true.”