Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas the neighborhood of Southside in Birmingham, Alabama, that his father Hugh Martin designed for his mother as a honeymoon cottage. Located at 1919 South 15th Avenue (just down the street from his birthplace at 1900 South 14th Avenue), the house became the home of Martin and his family in 1923. The song first appeared in a scene in "Meet Me in St. Louis", in which a family is distraught by the father's plans to move to New York City for a job promotion, leaving behind their beloved home in St. Louis, Missouri, just before the long-anticipated 1904 World's Fair begins.
Christmas with Friends (India.Arie and Joe Sample album) standards and one is an original track. SoulTracks' Melody Charles viewed the track listing as "leisurely-paced". The midtempo “Favorite Time of Year” is the album's only original song. It was co-written by Arie's mother during a session in the recording studio with her daughter and Aaron Lindsey, and includes lyrics about Arie's family, such as how her mother created her stage clothing. She chose to cover "Merry Christmas Baby" as her grandmother had previously sung to her during her childhood. Sample plays the piano on four of the album's songs: "Let It Snow", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Silent