Ontario Lottery Corporation - Santa Claus Is Canadian

Shocking, isn't it? Bet you didn't know that St. Nick's real name is St. Canuck. Turns out that Santa is a fan of Hockey Night in Canada. Santa even has Red Green on retainer as "advisor" to all the elves at his workshop.

Well, maybe.

My last yuleblog entry came to you from the Oregon State Lottery from last year. This charming album title comes to us from the Ontario Lottery Corporation circa 1981. Sense a pattern forming?

My good Canadian buddy Jeff at Jeffco Productions decided to offer this album at his website where you can STILL download this album for your own listening pleasure.

The Oregon lottery had five tracks to offer - "Santa Claus Is Canadian" is a full album with thirteen original tracks all quite lush and well produced - what you'd expect from a big lottery corporation.

Several of the tracks are instrumentals ("Fanfare For Christmas", "Country Christmas", "Christmas Samba") and hold up very nicely. I imagine these tracks were used in their lottery commercials while an announcer asks you to give the gift of gambling by buying someone special lottery tickets.

The vocal tracks are a bit overblown (sometimes evoking chuckles). My favorite track has to be "Christmas Pictures" begins with a man reminiscing about Christmas pasts. This leads us into a community sing with such lyrics as:

"After dinner, bellies full. Top buttons open wide. A magic moment touches every heart down deep inside."

Draw your own conclusions (I'm thinking I'll skip dinner).

As I'm typing these words, I'm listening to the album and I've reached the track called "Christmas Is For Children". A three minute track with a woman singer singing very nicely about how Christmas and kids go well. Suddenly around the two minute mark, she does her best to bring it home and begins her big finish - stand back and give her room!

Overall, the whole album gave me the feeling I was watching all the old Christmas variety specials of my youth - the images of winter sweater clad, blonde hair, blue eyed singers around the fire decking the tree and wrapping presents in the background while Bing and his family got center stage for the solos. Every move choreographed to perfection, every musical note sung to perfection.

Do yourself a favor. Download this album and take a musical trip down your own memory lane. It's quite fun!

On to the next new Christmas album in my collection...


Capt

Comments

CaptainOT said…
Ten billion houses in the world... all leave milk and cookies out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

Not sure if I'm envious or nauseous at the thought...


Capt
10/12/2006 06:06:00 PM
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