Music to decorate by

Reviewed December 2007

The film received some pretty awful reviews, but you can't knock the soundtrack – which is a standout collection of holiday fare. Opening with Johnny Mercer's classic 1947 version of "Jingle Bells" and moving through Elvis, Doris Day and the Jackson 5 to the Ronettes, the Waitresses and Leigh Nash, there are 11 classic seasonal tracks here, plus Iz Kamakawiwo'ole's immortal cover of "Somewhere Over the World / What a Wonderful World" and the theme song to the movie. As a soundtrack to decorating the tree or decorating Christmas cookies, this would be a pretty hard collection to beat.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).