Some Dedications

Happy Christmas in July! For the next week, you're going to take a sleigh ride through some holiday tunes. Central Virginia is burning up—the air outside feels thick as butter. And I here PC is sweating the pounds off out in Chicago. All the more reason to celebrate a cold winter holiday.

As we usually do during July, we’ll throw up a few new tracks (for 77 Santas at least) and some old. So turn up the air conditioner and construct some kind of elaborate snow-making machine in your house (we’re not engineers and have no suggestions—you’re on your own). Dig out the Christmas lights and hang them up outside--people will think you're crazy but who cares.

Purple Snowflakes – Marvin Gaye

Hear those flakes fall—the music almost twinkles here and then Gaye’s great voice kicks in. This one is for PC out in Chi-town.

We Three Kings of Orient Are – The Beach Boys

This one is for Brendan—he runs The Rising Storm, a superb music blog, and is also a huge Beach Boys Christmas album fan. During the “off season” for 77 Santas, I check his site regularly and hope you do as well.

Scarlet Ribbons – Bobbie Gentry

Another blog I check regularly is Living in Stereo. Their writing is often thoughtful, interesting, and lots of fun to read. Last Christmas, they threw up a great post with some amazing tracks. Here are two of them—let’s start with Bobbie. It seems with each passing month, I love this woman more and more.

Gonna Wrap My Heart In Ribbons – Hank Thompson

Here’s another courtesy Living in Stereo. Nothing makes you want to pop open a can of brew quite like Hank Thompson—one of country music’s great unsung heroes.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love

Finally, this one is for me—throughout the past seven months, on any given day, I have found myself listening to this, my absolute favorite Christmas song (and if you read this regularly, you know my love). Darlene, carry us out of here today.