Happy New Year! And thank you for an amazing 2023!  I feel like I say thank you a lot, but I really want to convey how grateful I am that you continue to listen to this podcast and the Sounds of Christmas online station. For the station, I don’t know that we broke any records this year. And, to be honest, with more people than ever listening on their phones, tablets and other devices, and with security improvements made to protect your privacy, we have the highest percentage ever of listeners in unknown areas. In fact, unknown has more listeners than anywhere else except the United State ..read more

On the first of November, Christmas Podcast Day, our podcast episode was all about Scrooge Songs, music that was written and recorded specifically for adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was kind of fun, tracking down all of the info for this, from the CBS special, part of its anthology series Show Of Stars, in 1954, to last year's animated Scrooge: A Christmas Carol on Netflix. But it didn't seem like quite enough to just list the adaptations and tell you a little about the songs.  So I've tracked down all the music, and put it together for an all-new special that wi ..read more

We are so excited to announce that we'll be airing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra The Christmas Attic 25th Anniversary Radio Special! For an entire hour, we'll be presenting TSO's music, along with interviews from guitarists Al Pitrelli and Chris Caffery, along with drummer Jeff Plate! They'll be talking about this year's tour, the music and the legacy of Paul O'Neill! You'll have several opportunities to catch this special on the first three Sundays in December, with airings on the Sounds of Christmas on Sunday, December 3 at 8pm (Eastern), Sunday, December 10 at 10pm (Eastern) an ..read more

The Sounds of Christmas began broadcasting online in 2007. This probably would not have happened if it weren't for Mannheim Steamroller. Their album "Christmas Song" came out that year, and they sponsored the Sounds of Christmas, promoting the new album and helping me get the station off the ground. They came back the next year, and the year after. And thanks to their support, the Sounds of Christmas was up and running. I can't imagine that we would have gone on to become the top Christmas station on Live 365 (year after year) if it hadn't been for Mannheim Steamroller. And I am forever gra ..read more

Any. Time. You Want ..read more

This is a variation of a blog I posted last year (and the year before). I always say that the Sounds of Christmas plays the best variety of Christmas Music. But I think the word "variety" has been so over-used these days that it no longer means anything. So I thought I'd show you what I mean.  While I probably won't do this again until next year, here's a list of the artists we played on the first day of our new season, when we switched back to all Christmas music on November 1. 1910 Fruitgum Company, 7eventh Time Down, A Great Big World, Adam Lambert, Aimee Mann, Al Ko ..read more

The new season of the Sounds of Christmas has begun, and we're trying to make it as easy as we can to tune in! ​There are three pretty simple ways to tune in. First, simply click on the player on the front page of our website. This way, you can listen to us as long as you're on that page, even if you open other windows. Second, you can click on the tree on our front page. That opens a pop-up player, so you can keep listening to us whether you stay on our website, or go to check your email, Facebook, etc. You can keep listening as long as you keep that pop-up player open ..read more

To mark the pending arrival of the new season of the Sounds of Christmas (November 1 at 6am Eastern), I thought I’d try something a little different this year. Starting on October 22nd, I’ll begin highlighting the top ten most-listened-to and most-downloaded episodes of this podcast, one each day up through Halloween. If you have a favorite, you are certainly welcome to listen again and try and boost it up into the top ten, but many that are there have their spots pretty secured. But there are a few that are close to each other, and there’s a bit of a bottleneck around number ten. At least ..read more

This is a variation of a blog I posted last year at the beginning of the 2022 season of the Sounds of Christmas. I always say that the Sounds of Christmas plays the best variety of Christmas Music, and that's also true for the Sounds of Halloween. But I think the word "variety" has been so over-used these days that it no longer means anything. So I thought I'd show you what I mean.  While I probably won't do this again until next year, here's a list of most of the artists we played on the first day of October, when the Sounds of Halloween 2023 began. a-ha, AC/DC, Adam S ..read more

This is part of a blog I wrote years ago, but I revisit it and try to update it a bit each year. ​Like most families, Halloween and Christmas have always been big at our house. Lisa and the kids are on the Halloween side, while I'm with Santa. I learned long ago not to try and convert any of them. I think what happened at Disneyland once illustrates it best. In one of the studios at California Adventure, you can use this machine to determine which hero or villain you are. I was Tarzan. All three of them were villains ..read more