Christmas: What's it Gonna Be, Santa? (

This edition in Universal's discount-priced compilation series Best of Brenda Lee: The 20th Masters Christmas Collection is actually a re-titled reissue of the 1999 collection Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree: The Decca Christmas Recordings. It contains all of the seasonal music Brenda Lee recorded for Decca Records between 1956 and 1965….

It’s that time of the year to make a list and check it twice to make sure you’ve added the brand new The Puppini Sisters Christmas EP: Dear Santa, I Can Explain… Featuring four never-before-released original Christmas songs that are bound to become classics played every year from now on! This fantastic quartet of songs are the perfect addition to Christmas with The Puppini Sisters, their all-time best-selling festive album, and to the classic single Jingle Bells, which Universal Music are re-releasing as a remastered track to coincide with Christmas 2021! Christmas At Home is a limited edition live album that the Puppini Sisters put out in December 2020. This was only available through their website and was made when ordered.

The Beatles never quite made a commercially released Christmas album, though they put together special singles for their fan club every year from 1963 to 1969, then compiled them as The Beatles Christmas Album, also just for the fan club, in 1970. These recordings were more spoken-word than musical, though there was a song, "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)," heard in excerpts on the 1967 record. It has been left to Ringo Starr to release the first full-length Christmas album from a Beatle, and I Wanna Be a Santa Claus is very much in the group's spirit. Since he returned to recording in 1992, Starr has made a point of making music reminiscent of the Beatles, hooking up in 1998 with a group led by Mark Hudson dubbed the Roundheads. Hudson is everywhere on I Wanna Be a Santa Claus, co-writing the half-dozen originals with Starr and others, co-producing with Starr, and handling a variety of instruments. He and keyboard player/arranger Jim Cox clearly are steeped in the Beatles, and they have effectively recreated a Beatles sound on the record, in some cases aping specific songs.

Between 1959 and 1973, viewers tuned in weekly to NBC for the latest episode of Bonanza. The beloved western, following the exploits of the Cartwright family on their Ponderosa ranch, aired for a remarkable 431 episodes and reached an estimated 400 million watchers in 87 countries. Bonanza inspired, well, a merchandising bonanza, with action figures, comic books, lunchboxes, model sets, dinnerware, and even a chain of steakhouses and a Lake Tahoe theme park.