Songfacts®:

• Mannheim Steamroller's rocked-out rendition of the traditional Welsh carol "Deck The Halls" is ubiquitous during the holiday season with its rollicking, synth-heavy intro making it instantly recognizable. The instrumental marked the self-described purveyors of "18th-century classic rock"'s entry into the realm of Christmas music. Mannheim founder Chip Davis wanted to apply the same innovative technique of combining classical instrumentation and modern technology that the group used on their Fresh Aire series of albums to traditional holiday fare.
  
  The resulting album, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, was the band's first album to chart on the all-genre Billboard 200, where it reached #50. It also put them on the path to becoming regular Yuletide hitmakers with several more holiday albums to their credit, including 1988's A Fresh Aire Christmas. Both albums are among the Top 10 best-selling Christmas albums in the US.
• Christmas cheer was already brewing around the music industry in preparation for the 1984 holiday season, with Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton heading for the studio to record Once Upon A Christmas, and a who's who of popular music acts gathering to cut the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" A&M Records was also preparing to release the Carpenters' An Old-Fashioned Christmas, and Wham! was about to drop "Last Christmas."
  
  But a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album? That would be career suicide, so Chip Davis was told. Despite the aforementioned projects in the works, he was warned that holiday albums were for has-beens and bargain bins, but Davis didn't care. Not only did he forge ahead with the project, he kept the $18.98 price point - the same as the group's regular albums. Once the album became a huge commercial success, lots of other acts followed with their own Christmas-themed releases in the ensuing years.
  
  "I remember when I did the first Christmas album and everybody said 'That will never work. It will die on the vine and blah, blah blah,'" Davis told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2016. "Then after 9 million units were sold [worldwide] in about two years, everybody was making a Christmas album. I think there was one year where there were 60 releases. It was crazy."
  
  But Davis wasn't really interested in the album's commercial appeal anyway. "I really didn't give it a thought at all," he continued. "I was all about counter-balancing the Renaissance with the 'Deck The Halls' technological sound and stuff. I was more interested in the album construction."
• The album also features fresh takes on the classics "We Three Kings Of Orient Are," "Good King Wenceslas," and "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," among others. Aside from utilizing traditional instruments and modern production techniques, the group incorporates some unusual tools for music-making, including a pencil and dry ice.
• The album also peaked at #8 on the New Age Albums chart and #2 on the Holiday Albums chart.
• In the music video, a young boy sneaks downstairs on Christmas Eve and finds a holiday card from Mannheim Steamroller. When he opens it, he finds a magical world where the band floats over snowy mountains and treetops as they play the tune.