If you are looking for an upbeat, delightful, melodic holiday album that features new Christmas songs instead of the same-old/same-old, “Wish: The Anderson and Petty Holiday Album” might just be what belongs on your Christmas list this year. Bursting with exuberance and memorable new melodies, this collection of songs is delivered with panache by a posse of talented singers including Liz Callaway, Drew Seeley, Natasha J. Barnes, Kyle Taylor Parker, and Sean Allan Krill (among a handful of terrific others).

The album immediately grabs you with the buoyant and bubbly “Wrapped in Your Love for Christmas,” a romantic duet performed by Brynn Williams & Drew Seeley. You are immediately embraced by the song’s joy and its infectious melody replays in your head, again and again. Though a tad perky (perhaps) for some, I challenge you not to grin, or your heart not to start beating in time with the music.

“Stowin’ Away in Santa’s Sleigh,” performed by Kyle Taylor Parker, has that jazz-blues flavor that makes for lovely holiday arrangements. This smooth and snappy number imagines a scenario where the storyteller sneaks into to Santa’s sleigh in-order to get to see a loved-one for the holidays. If witty and cynical is more your bent, “Playing Mrs. Claus”, dryly executed with aplomb by Natasha Barnes, will be sure to put the nutmeg your eggnog. The number relates the trials of ushering kids through a line to have their picture taken with a mall Santa.

Who doesn’t love the soaring voice of Liz Callaway? Her presence here automatically makes her the default highlight of this album. What a wonderful thing, then, that she always delivers and the song she has been given is the perfect vehicle for her talents. Here she sings the refelctive and heartwarming “The Piano,” the storyteller remembering her mom playing Christmas carols around the piano. It really gets to the heart of what Christmas and giving is about.  

I found “Wish: The Anderson and Petty Holiday Album” a welcome Christmas album, introducing us to nine new holiday songs that kindle the fires of the heart and ignite the embers of nostalgia. It put me in such a blissful holiday mood that I listened to it three times through before I could even sit and write about it. It’s a Christmas collection that will bring joy into your home this holiday season.