Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas etc., mainly because this bizarre situation was caused by my naive and atrocious lack of business acumen." Judy Garland's 1944 version of the song reached No. 27 on the "Billboard" charts. The lyrics Garland sang in "Meet Me in St. Louis" have been recorded with only slight variations by a number of artists, including Sinatra (in 1950 and 1963 single recordings), Bing Crosby (in "I Wish You a Merry Christmas"), Doris Day (in "The Doris Day Christmas Album"), Ella Fitzgerald (in "Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas"), The Pretenders (in the first "A Very Special Christmas" compilation), James Taylor (in
Merry Christmas from the Family "Happy Holidays Y'all". Keen states, "I vowed when I really started writing songs that I'd never write a sequel. But I thought, well, you know, why not." According to Keen the second song fills in some of the gaps on the characters and brings them a little farther along into their holiday celebration: "The song 'Merry Christmas from the Family' is set in the present tense. This song is set in the present tense, but little further in the future—say like after the party when everybody's packing up and leaving on the 26th of December." Merry Christmas from the Family