Takeshi Terauchi and His Blue Jeans -- Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

 

Well, we are really on the cusp of the big day since today is Christmas Eve. And hooray! Toronto will be guaranteed a White Christmas for the first time in four years. The video above is of a local neighbourhood here called Inglewood Avenue in the Midtown area and around the Holidays, the street name takes on a couple of more consonants to become Kringlewood (after Kris Kringle) because just about every house has taken on some huge versions of illumination and Christmas decoration, a phenomenon that has also caught on in the States. Traffic jams have become common due to all of the tourists coming by to take photographs and this was before the snow arrived. Just imagine what it's going to be like tonight and tomorrow. Unionville now has a rival in the Yuletide department!

It used to be an annual tradition within our household to catch as many of the Christmas animated specials that we could such as "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Another one was the Rankin-Bass production of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which made its premiere back on December 6th 1964.

Well, sometime during that same year, the ereki band Takeshi Terauchi and His Blue Jeans（寺内タケシとブルージーンズ）came up with their first Christmas record titled "Let's Go Christmas". One track included there was a twist-friendly instrumental version of the Gene Autry 1949 original song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and it's definitely swivel-hippingly aural fun for the whole family. It's also interesting to note that on Discogs where "Let's Go Christmas" is listed, each of the four tracks has its own distinct genre attached. You can also listen to the entire album with commentary at Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu".