Published on Dec 24, 2000
There were two major holiday traditions in the Thelen household
when I was a little boy. The first was that it was almost a
guarantee that I would get sick sometime between the 20th and New
Year’s Eve, meaning either Christmas or my birthday would be
adversely affected. (Sure enough, as I write this, both my wife and
I are laid up – my wife with a cold, me possibly with pneumonia.
Joy!) The other tradition was that Andy Williams’s album
Merry Christmas would find its way to our stereo.
When I got my own place, I found a copy of this at my local used
record shop (which I still miss since moving away from it), and it
too has found a regular place in our Yuletide celebrations. And
while this album shows its age at times, it still has some great
performances from someone whose influence on popular music might
not be recognized by the younger generation.
I’ll always remember this album for Williams’s jazzy rendition
of “Sleigh Ride,” possibly
the version I’ll always cherish in my life. It truly feels
like Williams is having fun with this song – as well as other
material scattered throughout this album.
Chances are, if you didn’t grow up with
Merry Christmas in your album library, some of these tunes
might not be as familiar as others are today. Two examples of this
are “Christmas Holiday” (another jazzy number which sounds like a
lot of fun, even today) and “Some Children See Him”. The latter
track came from a time when people weren’t afraid to talk about the
season for what it is – namely, the remembrance of the birth of
Jesus. And while this particular number drags a bit for me, it
still is nice to hear that someone remembered the season wasn’t
about commercialism – even though this record is over 30 years old.
(Memo to All-Music Guide: I love you guys and your research, but
this album was
not first released in 1995.)
All of this said, there are moments when
Merry Christmas shows its age. Prime example: “Little Altar
Boy,” a song which drags on far too long (and would probably be
prime material for some satirist to record a rather nasty version).
Again a song from a time when it was cool to mention religion in a
Christmas song, it probably captured the mood well back then (and
even I’m not positive when this disc was first released), but today
it sounds like a dusty relic.
Still,
Merry Christmas has performances which are unforgettable –
Williams’s renditions of “Winter Wonderland” and “Let It Snow! Let
It Snow! Let It Snow!” come to mind at this moment. And while this
particular release would probably please our parents more
(depending on how old you are), there’s still enough worthy
material for today’s generation to sit back and give it a spin
today.
Some traditions run deep, and I’m still glad that
Merry Christmas is a part of mine. (I could, however, live
without getting sick – but better me than my daughter. After all,
Christmas is for kids.)