Burl Ives "Holly Jolly Christmas"

I asked Barbara this week, “When did the Stocking Stuffer start?”

She looked up and ahead, searching through the years . . .

“I don’t know.  The 80s, probably?  It may have started before I got here.”

So for maybe 27+ holiday seasons, we’ve had the mvyradio Holiday Stocking Stuffer.

When I first started at MVY, we had the Singing Elves.

The Singing Elves were a number of MVY DJs (Barbara included), singing a 15 second snippet of a Christmas carol, with their voices altered up to high-pitched, elf-speed.

By the time I arrived on the scene at MVY, the staff haaaaaaaated those f-n elves.

There were 4 songs, and they rotated heavily, annoyingly.

But we couldn’t get rid of them.  People were obsessed with them.

Calls would start coming in, mid-November:  “When are the elves going to start!?!?!”

Every year, we’d entertain the subject of ditching the elves.  But inevitably, the question of “What will we replace them with?” stumped us.

Finally one December, in the middle of playing those annoying little bastards for the one-too-many-th time, we committed to it.  The elves were going to go, and we were going to decide NOW, what we’d do next year.

After much discussion, involving new Elf jingles, or the voice of Santa, or other talking bits, we decided that the only way we were going to survive the repetition that would continue each year, ad infinitum, was do not do a voice.  Just do a jingle.

I set about finding a short, distinct holiday jingle.

After many underwhelming ideas, I found the piece of music that we use today.

Burl Ives famously sang “Holly Jolly Christmas.”  But he reprised his version of the song in the stop-motion animated classic “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.”

And in this version of “Holly Jolly Christmas” there is a prologue/intro to the song that is easily clipped from the more familiar beginning of the tune.

Maybe in the year 2025, some Program Director at MVY will be insanely sick of the Stocking Stuffer jingle.  But for now, it rules the (holi)day.

(The Stocking Stuffer jingle is the first 6 seconds of this clip, right up until the singing starts)


Hear the song on Youtube.

Rudolph's Shiny New Year "Father Time's Song"

Instead of the usual Weekend Post, on weekends in December, I think I'll post some fun, weird holiday tunes.

With Christmas past us, I'd hoped for a selection of weird New Year's songs, but there's not much. Are there really any other New Year's songs, other than "Auld Lang Syne"? (Okay, U2 and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" come to mind)

Not everybody celebrates Christmas, yet there are a billion Christmas songs. But New Year's is a pretty universally acknowledged and celebrated holiday here in the U.S. You think there'd be more songs.

Paul Simon "Getting Ready For Christmas Day"

What do Irving Berlin, Johnny Marks, Jule Styne & Sammy Cahn, Jay Livingston & Ray Evans, Mel Torme & Bob Wells, Buck Ram & Kim Gannon & Walter Kent, Joan Javits, Felix Bernard, Mitchell Parish, George Wyle, Philip Springer & Fred Ebb all have in common?

They all wrote Christmas songs, but didn't celebrate Christmas.

That's right, the following Christmas carols were penned by Jewish songwriters:

"White Christmas"
"Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer"
"Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree"
"A Holly Jolly Christmas"
"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"
"Silver Bells"
"The Christmas Song"
"I'll Be Home for Christmas"
"Santa Baby"
"Winter Wonderland"
"Sleigh Ride"
"It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year"
(see below, for full songwriting credits)

How about Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Harry Connick Jr., Phil Spector, Carole King, Barry Manilow and Bette Midler? What do they have in common?

That's right, they're all Jewish, and they've all recorded Christmas albums.

What am I getting at?

Nothing. I just didn't want you to be surprised to find out that Paul Simon, who is Jewish, has a new song out called "Getting Ready For Christmas Day."

Happy Hanukkah!


Hear a dozen of the songs mentioned in this post:





Irving Berlin, "White Christmas"
Johnny Marks, "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer"
Johnny Marks, "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree"
Johnny Marks, "A Holly Jolly Christmas"
Jule Styne & Sammy Cahn "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"
Jay Livingston & Ray Evans "Silver Bells"
Mel Torme & Bob Wells "The Christmas Song"
Buck Ram & Walter Kent (also Kim Gannon) "I'll Be Home for Christmas"
Joan Javits & Fred Ebb (also Philip Springer) "Santa Baby"
Felix Bernard (also Richard B. Smith) "Winter Wonderland"
Mitchell Parish, "Sleigh Ride"
George Wyle (also Edward Pola), "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year"

Thank you to these several sites for information in this post.