Used vinyl records I have found in the wild really amaze me. Much like classic cars, here are artifacts from a previous era that have somehow made it to the present day – and cars are more resilient metal and chrome while record jackets are made out of cardboard. Amazing! And there is really nothing like a beautiful album cover to take you back in time. The art direction of this era was most often concerned with creating idyllic scenes of easy living and these depictions are what many of us collectors love so much about records. This often stunning art clearly depicts the styles, attitudes and aspirations of much of society of the 50s and 60s and the jacket is a huge part of what makes records so collectible.

And then there is the “copy”. The text written on these jackets is akin to that which is found on vintage advertisements. It is well written by professionals who are skilled in the art of selling the artists and singing their praises. But sometimes its a little different than just promotion of a singer – sometimes it is about promotion of a mood or an idea. Here is where the prose can verge more on the poetic.

I love the liner notes of the CD era as I always say that there is a lot to be learned from them as they often reveal info on the content of the compact disc and where it stands in the context of the artist’s career. But liner notes on some of these old records are less about learning and more about feeling. They are designed to set the mood just as much as the music is. This is often no more evident than it is on the Christmas records of the past. From a time before cynicism gripped the land, I have run across many Christmas records that include sincere and heartfelt statements on the magic, pageantry, solemnity and celebration of the Christmas season and some of the writing is so lovely that I thought it would be appropriate to share some of them with you. Without owning these records, these words, these sentiments are lost to the mists of time. Here I hope to preserve them, these Christmas cards that accompany my Christmas records.

“Christmas is the season of love. At no other time of year, it seems, do genuine warmth and affection seem so natural. Friends are remembered, family ties are bound more tightly, and the whole world is a brighter, cleaner place. Christmas feels good. For Christmas is a family time…a time for being with the ones you love. A time for the happy ring of the telephone. A time for the joyful peal of the front doorbell. A time for reaching out across the months and the miles to share a happy event. These are the songs of this season of love, presented by a man who sings them simply and sweetly. The warmth and the feeling of Christmas are in his voice. The message of love is in the songs. They bring to you the happiest, warmest, sincerest wishes of the season of love.”
– Season’s Greetings from Perry Como (1960)

“Among the many delights of Christmas, one of the most satisfying moments of all comes when, shopping done, the last guest waved goodbye, you relax in front of a glowing fire, a glass of something warming in your hand, a favorite record revolving on the turntable, somebody special held close, and wait for old Santa to appear in some appropriate manifestation. For that kind of moment, Jackie Gleason provides some of the most melodic of the popular Christmas songs… With that kind of inducement, better have an extra hassock on hand. Old Santa’s apt to settle down and listen a while.”
– ‘Tis the Season, Jackie Gleason (1967)

“The wondrous enchantment of Christmas and the festive holiday season has been told in many ways and in many languages down through the ages. From the moving biblical stories and the immortal lines of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, we have come to know and understand the true meaning of this most revered day. However, our feelings as Americans towards Christmas in other than a religious vein, have best been told by Tin Pan Alley and the present day songwriters. In their words and melodies they have truly captured the thoughts of children and adults during the Christmas season. Whether you spend Christmas in the sunny climates of Southern California and Florida, or in the snow covered countrysides of Maine and Minnesota, Lawrence Welk extends to you best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.”
– Merry Christmas from Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music (1956)

“The songs of Christmas have warmly sentimental words and melodies of grace and purity, and they are filled to overflowing with a wonderfully vibrant joy. As in this album, some have youthful gaiety, others quiet reverence; some are ages old and others are the songs of recent times. But all share one magical quality; they reveal our affection (hidden sometimes in the press of busy lives) for the friends and neighbors who surround us.”
– White Christmas, Pat Boone (1959)

This next one echoes my yearly thought that “the Christmas feeling” in our house just gets switched on one day. We decorate the house on the same weekend every year and so no matter what is going on in our lives one day in late November we wake up and it’s on. Sometimes I wonder if I am really ready or not. But every year its the same thing; once the music comes on and the tree goes up, the Christmas feeling does appear. Never fails.

“Have you ever noticed how ‘that Christmas feeling’ seems to ‘just happen’? Notwithstanding year-round anticipation and planning, we wake one morning and find ourselves surrounded by Yuletide smiles and splendor. Helping to create this feeling, however, are a myriad of separate ingredients: lavish decorations, candle-lit churches, street-corner Santas, snow-flaked store windows, a sense of good will, a very special brand of music…each Christmas ingredient familiar, yet always fresh and moving.”
– That Christmas Feeling, Bing Crosby (compilation, 1958)

I am a vigorous proponent of physical media and this includes compact discs. There’s no denying, though, that the possibilities for album art were hampered by the advent of the CD. As I’ve said before, there is much to be learned by reading the booklet that comes with a CD but often that booklet is more of a thesis, an academic text, often lengthy. And that carries some weight as serious business. So much so that the Academy has awarded a Grammy for Best Album Notes since 1964. Stan Cornyn won two back-to-back for Sinatra albums and some cat named Dan Morgenstern has won eight of them!

And don’t get me started on streaming music. This method of basically disposing of music after you’ve heard it affects not only the packaging (there is none aside from the fancy case on your phone) but also to the quality and durability of the “album”. And if the music itself is disposable – what of album art and liner notes?

Conversely, today we’re talking about treasured artifacts. This is about sacred texts. The heartfelt “copy” on the back of a vintage Christmas album is as archaic as the records themselves. In a very real way, these words are disappearing – have been disappearing for years – and I feel they are worth preserving before they vanish. Liner notes of this sort just aren’t a thing anymore. But like many other treasured artifacts, they will live on here at Vintage Leisure. I’m your curator.

“Christmas…to some it’s a tree by the fireplace tipped with a gleaming star…to others a reflective hour in church surrounded by flickering altar candles and stained glass windows…or the long-awaited sight of loved ones.”

– A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra (1957)

There is something otherwordly about the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Christmas Album. Not only is it a glorious record but the mood it conjures is one of sublime reverie and I cannot help but ponder the year it was released and what leisure and Christmas record listening would have looked like back then every time I listen to it. The unique “Christmas Prayer by an unknown author” on the back seems somehow fitting.

“Give us faith in ourselves and faith in our fellow man…then the treasures and beauties of life that make man happy will spring from an inexhaustible source. And at Christmas, when the hearts of the world swell in joyous celebration let us cast aside the pretense of sturdy men and live, if only for a day, in the hope and joy we knew as children.”

“Here is warming, fireside holiday music, of a kind that is meant for those precious hours when evening reaches toward dawn and thoughts drift into dreams of the holidays gone by, and of those yet to come. The mood is soft with the glow of Christmas lights seen through a snowfall, and gay with the stir of a tree-trimming party…”

– Merry Christmas, Jackie Gleason (1956)

“The magic of Christmas is a strange and wondrous thing. Like a midwinter spell it makes the chill air turn warm, and fills men’s hearts with Goodwill to all other men. It’s a kind of magic that finds voice in the joyous Christmas songs that are the common chorus of the western world.”

– The Magic of Christmas, Nat King Cole (1960)

We close where we began. I feel it is fitting to honour Perry Como by having him introduce us to this special, this quiet, this tender, warm and heartfelt slice of the past and also to have him tuck us in and shepherd us off to a dreamland filled with all the sincerity, all the peace, all the hope and love we’ve seen in these earnest expressions, in these unaffected wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

“The moods of the Christmas season are many and wondrous. They speak of joy and of hope, of laughter and love, of warmth, and of peace-on-earth, good-will to all men. These moods, and the other emotions of the Christmas holiday, are familiar to all of us, each mood is beautifully expressed through music and each one is touched with a special magic of the Season.

There was magic, remember, in that week before Christmas when the snow fell thickly, leaving the ground a spotless carpet of white. You had stopped at the store, you had bought a couple of gifts, and as you walked home that quiet night, you walked in a veritable wonderland of winter. The air was cold and crisp. The stars shone brightly. There was joy and wonder in your heart. And it was all because of Christmas.”

– Perry Como Sings Merry Christmas Music (1956)