Harry Connick, Jr.: When My Heart Finds Christmas
AllMusic; Amazon; B&N; Discogs; iTunes; official website; Wikipedia

This came out in 1993. Not sure when I first listened to it, but I'm doing so again in 2021 to write a review. It's a good album if you're looking for something jazzy. (Though I guess most of it isn't jazz.)

The album contains four original songs written by Connick, two of which are among the very few original Christmas songs that I actually find memorable: "When My Heart Finds Christmas" and "(It Must've Been Ol') Santa Claus", which are both good. The other two originals, "The Blessed Dawn of Christmas Day" and "I Pray on Christmas" are of no great interest to me, but they're not bad. There are also a couple more songs that were unfamiliar to me. "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" has some fun lyrics, but I only kind of liked the song. Still, it's nice to hear something new to me, even if I don't expect to remember it. I liked the other one, "Christmas Dreaming" a bit better, I think, but I also don't expect to find it memorable.

All the songs that are familiar to me are done fairly well, but I don't feel the need to list all of them. I do want to mention that the first half of "Ave Maria" is purely instrumental, and I was starting to think the whole piece would be, but over two minutes into the song, Connick finally started singing. Not one of my favorite renditions, but it was good. Parts of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were sung by a group of kids, along with Connick. That was kind of cute. And part of "O Holy Night" was sung by a choir. The album closes with "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?", with which I'm not super familiar, but I do know it, and I always kind of like it. (Though reading Wikipedia's page about the song, I just learned that it wasn't originally meant to be played near the holidays. But I think it was kind of inevitable. Sorry, Frank Loesser.)

Well, for the most part I'd say the album is worth two and a half smileys, but I'll tack on an extra half just for the first two songs I mentioned.