Personnel includes: Linda Eder (vocals); Bernd Schoenhart (guitar); Sandra Park, Sharon Yamada, Lisa Kim, Jenny Strenger, Anna Rabinova, Carol Webb, David Nadien (violin); Richard Locker, Ted Mook, Joshua Gordon, Qiang Tu (cello); Mike Davis (trumpet, trombone); Jim Hynes, Tony Kadleck, Jeff Kievit, Greg Ruvolo (trumpet); Herbert "Big Bottom" Besson, John Fedchock, Birch Johnson (trombone); David Weiss Jeremy Roberts (piano, keyboards); Jason Howland (piano); David Finck (acoustic bass); Will Lee (electric & fretless basses, background vocals); Mark Walker (drums); Bashiri Johnson (percussion); Chris Hajian (programming); Broadway Gospel Choir, Vaneese Thomas (background vocals).

Recorded at Sound On Sound Studios and Edison Recording Studio, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Linda Eder.

Brainerd, Minnesota-raised Linda Eder is presumably no stranger to snow, so she's an ideal candidate to lead this collection of Christmas songs old and new. Her voice is classy and Broadway-oriented, as are most of the arrangements here (stabs of "New York, New York" have been somewhat sacreligiously inserted into the medley of "Here Comes Santa Claus/Santa Claus is Coming to Town"). If you're yearning for the kind of album that the grown-ups used to play to augment the egg-nog and Martinis, then yearn no more.

CHRISTMAS STAYS THE SAME features a couple of originals by the Broadway team of Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy (who penned the immensely successful though hardly Yuletide-friendly JEKYLL AND HYDE musical in which Eder has appeared), including the title track and the unapologetically sentimental "Christmas Through a Child's Eyes." Their florid style suits Eder's expressive vocals down to the ground. In a more traditional vein "The Little Drummer Boy" exerts its usual strange fascination, lending itself to pretty much any arrangement, while "Do You Hear What I Hear" gets an attractive and tasteful world music/LION KING treatment. Christmas remains safe and unchanging in Linda Eder's talented and capable hands.