The Best Christmas Album... Ever?

This is the second year that my wife and I have celebrated Christmas overseas, apart from our family and in cultures where most people aren’t celebrating at all. Both years, Michael W. Smith’s It’s A Wonderful Christmas (2007) has served as the soundtrack to our holiday. And this year, I am even more convinced that this album is possibly the best work of Christmas music since Handel’s Messiah (1742).

Christmas-themed (or merely “holiday-themed”) albums are churned out with surprising regularity each year by popular musicians – and are usually little more than kitsch. They often appear as just another strategy to cash in on the commercialization of what was once sacred. Most take traditional carols, a few popular standards about snow and Santa Claus, set them all to (fill-in-the-blank-star)’s signature sound, and maybe add an original or two that will most likely be forgotten. The few exceptions that come to mind seem to prove the rule. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas (Is You)” and Jon Bon Jovi’s “Come Home for Christmas” will probably continue to get airplay, but there’s no sense of awe and wonder. Paul McCartney’s “Merry Christmas (War Is Over)” somehow managed to turn a Christmas/New Years song into a political protest song, which – depending upon how you look it at – is either an amusing trick or a tasteless guesture. Bruce Springsteen belting out “Saaaaaanta Claus Is Coming To Town!” seems more reminiscent of an angry Vietnam vet screaming “Baawwwwwrn in the USA!” – perhaps it was an angry unemployed department-store Santa? And speaking of taste – let’s not even discuss Carman’s A Long Time Ago In a Land Called Bethlehem.

Perhaps the best description of the whole phenomenon comes from the aging rock star in the film Love Actually. While recording a Christmas version of one of his hit songs, he turns off the microphone and says to his manager, “This is [crap]!”

To which his manager replies through the studio intercom, “Yes, but it’s solid-gold [crap]!”

I mention all of the above, just to drive home how unique It’s A Wonderful Christmas truly is. All but one of the songs are self-written originals, over half are instrumentals – and every one is truly captivating. It takes a high degree of confidence in one’s musical abilities to not only believe you can make an original contribution to the canon of Christmas music, but that you can capture the true meaning of the world’s biggest holiday without words or voice. It takes an artist of the highest degree to actually pull it off, and create a work that enraptures the listener. The lyrics are never cheesy and often profound; the music is carried by Smith’s singing and his piano, with some great orchestral work but no sense of over-production. His voice has always has a distinctive edge to it, but here he sounds less like a rocker-become-pop-star and instead evokes the mature masculinity of a West Virginia-raised father of 5 children. Here is worship, awe, wonder, mystery, playfulness, big celebration and quiet contemplation – all of the emotions and memories associated with the best of Christmas tradition.

There are no duds on this album, but two tracks that stand out are “The Promise” (co-written with his oldest son, Ryan) and “Song For the King.” The former conveys the intense longing for the Messiah, before erupting into “we’re singing Hallelujah!” and concluding, “Emmanuel / Our God is with us.” The latter begins with piano, adding violin, and then a whole orchestra, and by the time the violin sings the final high note few listeners will have dry eyes. Elsewhere, bagpipes (“Highland Carol”) and mass choirs (“Sing Noel, Sing Hallelujah”) make appearances, as does guest vocalist Mandisa (“Christmas Day”). The lone cover, the traditional “What Child Is This,” showcases Smith’s unaccompanied piano, as does “Audrey’s Gift.”

Michael W. Smith has been around for nearly three decades. He’s written nearly two hundred songs, one of which played a role in my wife coming to believe in Jesus as a teenager. He created one of the first well-done Christian music videos, successfully crossed-over into the mainstream, performed for the Pope, immortalized Columbine “martyr” Cassie Bernall in song, released two greatest-hits collections, won numerous awards and sold over 13 million albums. But It’s A Wonderful Christmas is his ultimate artistic achievement.

I expect to be listening to it for the rest of my life.