Let It Snow 2016

Santa Claus Lane ca. 1928

In 1928, store merchants on Hollywood Boulevard decorated a mile stretch of their street between Vine and La Brea and renamed it Santa Claus Lane. In an effort to lure shoppers downtown, businessman Harry Blaine and the Hollywood Boulevard Association called the thoroughfare the "world's largest department store," and installed 100 live pine trees in planters covered with twinkling lights. If that weren't enough, they devised a nightly parade where Santa, pulled in a carriage by six reindeer and accompanied by a Hollywood film star, waved to the crowd as they passed. Eventually tin trees took the place of the live trees (which were planted on the grounds of the Hollywood Bowl), and then more elaborate trees came after those. There was also a period where tinsel wreaths framing portraits of movie stars lined the street as well (in the third picture below, Claudette Colbert puts the finishing touch on a wreath featuring herself).

Over the years, the parade grew in size and attendance with more floats and more movie stars. In 1946, cowboy film star Gene Autry rode his horse in front of Santa and heard the excited cries of children in the crowd exclaiming, "Here comes Santa Claus!" From that experience, Autry wrote one of the most enduring holiday songs, "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)." While the extravagant decorations are no more, the parade still exists! What started life as the Santa Claus Lane Parade, and renamed as the Hollywood Santa Parade, is now known as the Hollywood Christmas Parade.

"Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer"

I grew up watching Rankin and Bass stop-motion animated holiday television shows and they hold a special place in my heart. "Frosty The Snowman" was narrated by Jimmy Durante, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" was narrated by Fred Astaire, and the classic special you see here, "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" was narrated by Burl Ives! It airs tonight at 8PM...I'm glad it is still around (it first aired in 1964, the year I was born, so it is as old as me!).

http://www.rankinbass.com/

"Joy" by Tracey Thorn

Tracey Thorn, she of the glorious, mellifluous voice, last month released a collection of holiday songs called "Tinsel and Lights." The album features re-interpreted cover songs save for two written by Thorn. This is her original song "Joy," so simple, heartfelt, and lovely, in which she addresses the preciousness, fragility, and resiliency of the human condition by singing the line, “We must be alright if we can make up Christmas night.”

The video was filmed at the Marché de Noël (Christmas Market) in Lille, France.

A highlight of the release is a duet with Green Gartside (whom I adore) on a song called "Taking Down The Tree" which I will wait to post until I take down my own holiday tree!

http://www.traceythorn.com/