So I want to make to make a Christmas CD. I also want to preform the music to go on the CD. What do I use to record the music with? How do I put the music on the CD?

Not a dumb question at all. There are a few ways you can do this, but the easiest and least expensive is to buy a digital recorder and record your music on it. The software on your computer and whatever is built into the recorder will allow you to upload the music and burn it onto a disk.

If you want something more professional than that, you'll need better equipment. I have a unit that will burn onto CD's from cassettes and I have a cassette recorder that is top-quality. That's a more expensive alternative. I'm sure there are units that record directly to CD, but that's way beyond my needs so I can't comment on that.