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‘Tis the season, Day 19

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A small Cape Cod-style house, decorated with Christmas lights and covered with snow.

Season’s greetings from Green Bay. It’s snowing here today.

First big snow of the season, complete with a winter storm warning. It started about six hours ago, at mid-morning. It’s still going, powder snow gently falling. We might get 6 or more inches before it’s all done overnight.

Just gotta …

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Record cover of "Christmas with the Miracles" LP by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, 1981 re-release on Motown.

“Let It Snow,” Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, from “Christmas with the Miracles,” 1963. (Our copy is the 1981 reissue on the Motown label. The original was on the Tamla label.)

This version of the familiar holiday song has a lot going for it. It’s the group’s original lineup, with Claudette Robinson singing lead. After an elegant piano intro, it swings, driven by some Latin-flavored percussion, all wrapped up in a neat 1 minute, 40 seconds.

Some years ago, we were a little dismayed to find Christmas albums by Barbra Streisand and Reba McEntire in our collection and could not explain their presence.

At the same time, it was a delightful surprise to rediscover this vintage soul Christmas album. We’d forgotten that we had it.

“Let It Snow” — its full title is “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” — is another holiday song written in the summer.

Composer Jule Styne and lyricist Sammy Cahn laid it down during a Hollywood heat wave in July 1945 — at the same place and time that singer Mel Torme and songwriter Bob Wells came up with “The Christmas Song.”


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