Christopher explains how he ended up writing his first Christmas song:

Christmas music has always been a big part of the holiday season for me. Like many musicians, I give Christmas concerts every year, and  I’ve always enjoyed the artistry and emotional power of the best Christmas songs. Plus, they bring back fond memories whenever I hear them.

We all hear the 40 or 50 most popular  Christmas songs every year (whether we want to or not!). But as a music fan, I’ve heard many other wonderful Christmas songs, so I decided to compile my favorite obscure Christmas recordings into a CD that I could listen to every year. Then,  I began actively searching for additional wonderful but seldom-heard Christmas songs. I also became interested in the stories behind the most popular songs, and added that to my researching binge. This Christmas music search was so diverting that I ended up doing it every December for a number of years.

Eventually it occurred to me that, without meaning to, I’d given myself a pretty good education in the art of writing Christmas music. Until then, it had honestly never occurred to me to write a Christmas song. I assumed all of the good ideas had already been used (many times over). And it’s true that much of the new Christmas material that shows up every year ranges from predictable new versions of standards to bizarre songs that barely qualify as being about Christmas. But after 10 years of finding wonderful, obscure Christmas songs, I realized that it wasn’t true that all of the good ideas were used up—people were still finding new, emotional ways to write about Christmas.

When I reached that conclusion, I decided to stick my neck out and write some Christmas music. In fact, I thought, “Why not write an entire album of new Christmas songs?” So I set out to do that, and with all of my research  to guide me, I came up with a number of ideas that I hadn’t heard before, and I set about turning those ideas into songs. I figured I could write two or three Christmas songs every year, finishing a complete Christmas album over a period of several years.

I finished my first two Christmas songs in late 2011. The second one I finished was “Songs of the Season,” which incorporates a couple of the stories I’d encountered about classic Christmas songs. It also references the annual Christmas caroling party that my wife and I host, where our friends come over for food and drink and we all sing the classic carols ( indoors)! Since then, I’ve written a total of nine new Christmas songs, with a tenth song in the works. Furthermore, I’m now working on a story that will allow me to turn these 10 songs into a Christmas musical.

The reaction I got when singing “Songs of the Season” for friends and family was so over the top that I made an executive decision to record the song ASAP, instead of waiting until I had an entire album of Christmas songs finished. Having a choir on the recording was an obvious choice to me, especially since the last verse of the song talks about our friends joining us to sing Christmas carols every December. With a bit of effort I was able to enlist singers from the local chorale society to participate in the recording, and the result is pretty spectacular.

I hope you enjoy the recording! And I hope you have a very merry Christmas!