Christmas Wishes

Another year, another Christmas release … what now, what next where to … ?

Design

A budget release with a budget design … what more can we say, a lot of snow crystals and one picture of our man against a Christmas background. No liner notes on the special time of the year, just the song info. And this last sentence was actually a positive one, since this release contained more info on the content of the CD than the “HitStory” 3 CD set that was released the same day.

Content

Elvis Christmas release #100 (we can’t be far off with this number). Since Christmas is a holy holiday the producers decided to add some spirituals to the song selection for this release. Forty percent of the selection is a “plain spiritual” and not a Christmas song. This was a poor alternative to create 2 CD Christmas packages which aren’t Christmas packages, but on a 14 track budget release this is really poor. Either create a Christmas or a gospel release, since not many people will play a Christmas release mid summer to enjoy a few spirituals (“Merry Christmas Baby” excluded, you can play that song anytime).

And why release it in October. We want to buy a Christmas release around Chritsmas, preferably a new one and play that new release it when the time is right. Just for the record, nothing wrong with the content itself, it is part of Elvis' best selling and most appriciated work.

Conclusion

If you don’t want to use the shuffle function on your CD player this Christmas, get this CD for a few dollars, then you have the same "old" tracks in a different sequence.

Track listing:

1. Santa Claus Is Back In Town
2. White Christmas
3. Silent Night
4. Silver Bells
5. It Wont Seem Like Christmas (Without You)
6. The First Noel
7. Crying In The Chapel
8. O Come, All Ye Faithful
9. In My Father’s House
10. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
11. Amazing Grace
12. How Great Thou Art
13. An Evening Prayer
14. His Hand In Mine