Award winning children's songwriter and performer Mary Lee's Little Christmas is loaded with Christmas fun, including songs and carols, spoken word and rhymes, and fingerplays! Throughout the recording there are a capella songs and children's voices, as well as the sounds of many instruments including the recorder, acoustic and electric guitar, cello, violin, pan flute, bells, snare drum, tambourine, and xylophone. With a mixture of up-tempo sing-alongs and more classical and slower songs, this CD is great way to get your child into the holiday spirit.

This CD stands out from other Christmas albums because of Mary Lee's creative song choices. For instance, she has included songs in other languages, such as Dona's Nobis Pacem and Canzone d'I Zampgnari - which sings a verse in English, Italian, and then English again to really help with the translation. Mary Lee also puts lyrics to Pachelbel's Canon in D by simply repeating "alleluia" in a capella to create the melodies. Listeners may not even notice there are no instruments in this song, since the voices do a lovely job of harmonizing. Mary Lee even took a few classic children's songs and altered words to make them into Christmas songs. For example, she remakes Twinkle Twinkle Little Star into a song about a Christmas star, and Brush Your Teeth now happens on Christmas morning. Many instruments are also heard throughout the album, and most clearly in Christmas Day in the Morning, where Mary Lee introduces each instrument just before it is heard playing; a guitar, pan flute, tambourine, violin, and cello. This creates a clearer association for your little one between the name of the instrument and the sounds it makes.

Mary Lee's selection of less common Christmas music, and some of her originals, offers plenty of stimulation for young listeners, whether it's their imagination being stimulated to envision the Christmas Sleigh Ride while they 'clap their mittens' and 'stomp their boots' along with the lyrics, or they are naming the months of the year with Mary Lee in What Month Is Christmas Day In? If your child already knows the months of the year, this is excellent practice, but if they are still learning, putting the months to a jazzy tune provides an excellent learning aid. The Christ Child Loved The Animals is a favorite for the youngest children, as it includes animals sounds after each animals is named. What Is Snow? is a question that your little one will surely ask someday - if they haven't already - and Mary Lee's song provides an excellent starting point for your answer, "Something cold. Something white. Soft and light. Crystal ice. In the sky. Falls to Earth as snow." Finally, the spoken word track, It's the Thought teaches the holiday lesson about not focusing on gifts, but instead on the thought people put into your Christmas gift or the amount of thought you put in to theirs.

My three-year-old friend, Sam, was surprised that the CD didn't have more of the traditional carols that he knows, but he did find some new favorites. He absolutely loved the snare drum in Pat-a-Pan, and likes to hit the top of his thighs like they are a drum while he marches around the room. He gets a very serious face during this song (which only cracks me up) and I think he's pretending he's a soldier.

--Audra

Mary Lee Sunseri is the winner of two American Library Notable Children's Recordings and four Parents Choice Awards. She has produced and performed 16 CD's of traditional and original music. Mary Lee has performed with the legendary Burl Ives, opened for Bill Cosby and Lily Tomlin, recorded the title song to Walt Disney's movie The Apple Dumpling Gang, recorded nursery rhymes for Mattel Toys' See 'N Say, toured as a member of "Randy Sparks & The Back Porch Majority,"and appeared in the MGM Elvis Presley movie The Trouble with Girls.

Mary Lee received her certificate of study in Musical Theatre from London Drama School with distinction in singing. She performs at festivals, concerts, folk clubs, and corporate and academic groups. She is a frequent performer at public schools and　libraries throughout California, Massachusetts and Washington, and gives workshops on music and infant brain development.

This CD has a mix of songs, carols, rhymes & fingerplays. I love this music for kids because there are many tempos thoughout the CD (meaning mix of slow and fast songs). Also featured are many different instruments too. This is a great way to teach your little one about the different musical instruments. My son liked the song Brush Your Teeth the best! Very upbeat and fun song for kids. My favorite song is Pachelbel's Cannon in D. Always been one of my favorite songs (I even walked down the isle at my wedding to this song).