Big Balls of Holly

A Marshmallow World - Deano and Frank

Dean Martin - Christmas Blues

White Christmas fanale

The Scene...

The Christmas Song - Mel Torme and Judy Garland

For my wife...

Bing Crosby - White Christmas (from Holiday Inn)

Ray Conniff: Here We Come A-Caroling

Ray Conniff and The Singers: Let It Snow! / Count Your Blessings / We Wish You A Merry Christmas

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE - Bill Jacoby & Lady Sybil Smythe

Baby It's Cold Outside - Doris Day and Bob Hope 1949

Fairy On The Christmas Tree

George Melachrino for your atomic Christmas party.

 

Fairy On The Christmas Tree

Christmas in July

I am going to be posting listen links for some of my favorite Chistmas songs. These will just be quick entries without elaboration so that I can get them circulated on my new Blip FM stream. There will be kinks, I will work them out later. The tracks are hosted on rapidshare.  

Santa's Too Fat For The Hula Hoop

R.I.P. Ricardo Montalban

Ricardo Montalban earned his place in Christmas Music History when he sang "Baby It's Cold Outside" in the movie Neptune's Daughter. This marks the first of more than 50 years of recording this beatiful duet. They are being taken down  all of the internet, but here is a link to a site that has the imbed from the original scene.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Sprucing Up The Garden

Today's post is a double dipper. The same post going up on both of my blogs. Decorating the public garden for Christmas is where my passion for horticulture and Christmas come together. Along with the whole horticulture crew I decorated a 30 foot spruce with ornaments. The main thing that made this possible was the availability of large shatter-proof ornaments at a local big box center. Without this I would have needed a lot more money. These 10 dollar ornaments have been 4 to 6 times that online.

The first time I saw that sturdy Spruce I wanted to decorate it for Christmas!

There is an image here of my boss on the ladder that gives you an idea how high up the ornaments had to be placed. What you cannot get a sense of is the difficulty in getting the ladder positioned to keep the climber and safe, not to mention the ferocity of the wind.

 

Christmas At Our House

Here, now, for your listening pleasure, Big Balls of Holly proudly presents Christmas At Our House. Recorded in 1958 this album features the dulcet tones of Martha Tilton as well as the golden digits of George Mather at The Console.What we have here is a classic Christmas recording from some big time and long time Christmas music players. This is the record that was referenced in The Captain's Yuleblog a couple of seasons back, so read that again, please. The great find here is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. This is the original release of the Thurl Ravenscroft version of this song. Mr Ravenscroft is most famous to Christmas music fans for having sung "You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch." IF that is news to you, yes you are thinking or the correct version and like all of us you thought that Boris Karloff sang that. Karloff did the narration of the original cartoon and Ravenscroft did the song. I am also adding the beautiful Martha Tilton version of Jingle Bells to my primary Christmas playlist, and straight to my ipod. It is interesting to note a couple of facts here. Ravenscroft and Tilton lived through just about all of Christmas music recording history and died within a year or so of each other in 2005 and 2006. Also, on the Martha Tilton tribute website neither these songs nor this album are listed in her discography. If you know any TIlton fans, make sure they see this share. Finally, I am adding a listening link for another Thurl Ravenscroft song. I do not have the record, but rather, found this at WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

Christmas At Our House

 

Santa's Too Fat For The Hula Hoop

eBay Alert!... Union Blow Mold Christmas Mouse

Wow! This is pretty cool. Lots of people collect blow molds. Usually people are collecting these because they had something similar as a child, or that is to say, their parents did. What we have here is what I call a crossover. An item that moves from personally nostalgic to generally nostalgic. What I mean is that this item makes you feel like displaying it for Christmas even if you have never seen it before today. It's early in the year, but I think this will go for more than 50 dollars. If we were in December this would make $75 easy.

Union Blowmold Christmas Mouse

Final Price $38.50

 

Snowflakes And Sweethearts

Hello Everybody! I have not posted in a while, and now it's time to kick it into high gear. I heard a terrific song today and knew that I had to post the album for share. Leroy Holmes was an American composer, arranger and band leader throughout the 50's, 60's and 70's. What you will find on this record is that quintessential 60's sound that we love in so many great artists of that time.  The song Snowflakes And Sweethearts transported me to Christmastime. Other tracks that are going onto my Christmas playlist are; The Worst Darn Winter In Years, Button Up Your Overcoat and Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.

Snowflakes And Sweethearts

 

 

Western Christmas

Big Balls of Holly proudly presents for your enjoyment, Western Christmas! This is one of the great Christmas records. Here again, as in my most recent share, the best track may be The Night Before Christmas Song.  There are some songs here that are not really Christmas songs but they continue the festive mood just the same. One of the songs is new to me, Wait For The Wagon (On Christmas Day). You will have to let me know what you think of that one. Will it be added to your playlist, downloaded to your iPod, included in your podcast? Speaking of podcasting, BBOH received a comment from HellBound Alleee and she has an interesting podcast. Here is the new share: 

Western Christmas

 

 

Christmas With The Caroleers

This weeks Christmas record share is Christmas With The Caroleers. The King, or Ernie, had posted the album cover on Flikr, but the wrong record was in the sleeve, so I do not believe this has been shared. The Caroleers were a group of talented vocalists who did not normally receive recognition by name on records. They recorded in many different styles and, as such, this isn't really a cohesive album, but it does shine on a few tracks. You will not be downloading the entire record. You are getting all of side A. Side B was too far gone to salvage, and to be frank, the songs on the b side are nothing special. That being said, there is one fantastic track on side B, The Night Before Christmas.I did work at length to clean that one up for you. It's not perfect but, man, that's a great song! Listen to that track now, then download the share.

The Night Before Christmas

Christmas With The Caroleers