Christmas Jazz Jam in twenty years. For the album, Marsalis assembled a group of ten musicians to perform uncredited arrangements of twelve holiday standards. Following "Mary Had a Baby" are traditional New Orleans jazz-style renditions of "Jingle Bells" (James Pierpont) and "Blue Christmas" (Billy Hayes, Jay W. Johnson). Kirk Silsbee of the "Los Angeles Times" awarded the album three of four stars and called the arrangements "smart yet not ostentatious". In 2009 "Christmas Jazz Jam" reached peak positions of number six on "Billboard" Jazz Albums chart, number nine on the Top Holiday Albums chart, and number nineteen on the Top Independent Albums chart.
Did Christians Steal Christmas? Did Christians Steal Christmas? Synopsis The booklet is divided into three sections. Part 1: “The timing of Christmas” notes that not all churches today celebrate Christmas on 25 December, that most scholars only attempt an approximate date for the year of Jesus’ birth, and that the Christmas celebrations superseded similar pagan festivities. Part 2: “The Christmas Story” analyses aspects of the Christmas story itself (the Virgin Birth, the Star of Bethlehem, the Three Kings, the Stable at Bethlehem and the Massacre of the Innocents) by reference to earlier pagan myths. It also looks critically at the attempts of Christian apologists