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Christmas Memories | 
 enlarge | Label: Sony
Category: Music
List Price: $18.97
Buy Used: $0.99
You Save: $17.98 (95%)
New (26) Used (39) Collectible (2) from $0.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 3089
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 85920
UPC: 696998592025
EAN: 0696998592025
ASIN: B00005QCNC
Release Date: October 30, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | I'll Be Home For Christmas | | • | A Christmas Love Song | | • | What Are You Doing New Year's Eve | | • | I Remember | | • | Snowbound | | • | It Must Have Been The Mistletoe | | • | Christmas Lullaby | | • | Christmas Mem'ries | | • | Grown Up Christmas List | | • | Ave Maria | | • | Closer | | • | One God |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
What's a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn cum internationally renowned pop diva doing releasing a(nother) Christmas album? Well, maintaining a long-lived American tradition, for one thing. But then, this companion piece to Barbra Streisand's 1967 A Christmas Album has a mature, jazzy charm and sometimes smoky atmosphere that don't exactly conjure chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Just as Streisand has always used music as a stepping stone to something more ambitiously dramatic, she's used the holiday season here as an excuse to explore rich emotional sentiments, if not necessarily sentimentalism itself. As on its 1960s forebear, her choice of material here is mostly as fresh as it is surprising. Among the contemporary More Usual Suspects (David Foster's "Grown-up Christmas List," "A Christmas Love Song," and "Christmas Mem'ries" by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) are gems familiar ("I'll Be Home For Christmas," "What Are You Doing Christmas Eve?") and rare (Sondheim's updated "I Remember," "It Must Have Been the Mistletoe"). While not bathos-exempt (see "Closer"), Streisand's rich, ever-expressive voice masterfully drives a collection that stretches from "Ave Maria" (Schubert's, this time) to the ecumenical timeliness of "One God." --Jerry McCulley
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| Customer Reviews: Read 157 more reviews...
 FROM ONE CHRISTMAS LOVING JEW TO ANOTHER.... *smile* December 20, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I ABSOLUTELY agree with L.SHIRLEY but read so many reviews since that I forgot what she said LOL.... but I also agree with the boring aspect of this album mentioned by another, though Barbra's actual SINGING can never be ''boring''.... Oh, yes.... Shirley said this is NOT for a party [back to that in a moment].....
Ok, look, there is nothing bad to be said about Barbra, she's magnificent and I have EVERYTHING she's done....all her films first on tape, then updated with DVD's then all her albums on records, then tapes, now CD's [please stop inventing new formats, I'm going broke]. I, like Barbra... am Jewish [not religious] and even come from Flatbush Brooklyn [went to Midwood, not Erasmus though close], so I take offense at a comment of someone really resenting a Jew making a Christmas album! Christmas is everyone's holiday and my favorite OF the year, and favorite TIME of year, and if our greatest female singer of all time can't leave her stamp on it, then we're really in trouble on this planet [we are anyway]........
Now, my only beef is that I want Christmas to be upbeat. I want all happy, funny songs on an album for a party or just getting into a great mood [as Shirley implied] and another when feeling dreamy and alone or with someone. I make MANY of my own CD's with all Mathis' upbeat songs and slow ones, separately [the greatest MALE vocal quality and range that ever lived] and also Sinatra in his ring a ding ding mode songs so I don't understand why the music industry can't comply with that and do the same. When I'm in a great mood and getting dressed for a party or having one, of COURSE I want all the fast, happy, cheerful Christmas [and other] songs ONLY playing and not intercepted with slow depressing ones.....
I bought this CD long ago and just hadn't gotten around to her "A Christmas Album" yet. Wanting Christmas from her, I just grabbed one, and now years later playing it again on Christmas, am SO disappointed because it isn't upbeat with the traditional FUN songs, so ordered the other one tonight, although it too has a couple with the religious bent so I guess we're out of luck and my search brought no better results, and I guess these are the only two. I would want an ALL spiritual album from her as well because those songs are also beautiful, but for when the time is appropriate to listen to it, and separately. Of course this is beautiful [nothing she does isn't the best there is], but my complaint is for the producers of albums not catering to different MOODS, and not separating the song genre's on different whole albums, not just for holiday albums, but all of them. This [and the other one] is not what I play when wanting to feel good and in a great Christmas mood. It's just because I have to have everything she does, and it's nice when sitting and relaxing during Christmas or with someone special at a quiet time. Barbra.... let's hear about Rudolf's nose, jingle bell rock, toyland, winter wonderland, marshmallow world, needing a little christmas, letting it snow, santa coming to town, beginning to look a lot like Christmas, it being the 'most wonderful time of the year, and so MANY more! Lighten UP! lol I gave it 5 stars because other than all of the above, the album and 'she' is magnificent for what it is.... a mixture of moods.
Barbra shines... November 19, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a must-have for any Streisand fan AND/OR those who love Christmas and winter. The songs are varied, and the imagery is fabulous. Barbra wraps her beautiful vocals around I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS MEM'RIES, and CHRISTMAS LULLABYE and the tears start to flow; she handles IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE MISTLETOE with ease, and I love the Barbra Mandrell original. Then, there are the visions of snow and bare trees and vast sky as she sings I REMEMBER and SNOWBOUND. And AVE MARIA, CLOSER, and ONE GOD add the spiritual feel and reverence for this time of year that are important to all of us. Masterfully-written songs and lush orchestration make this a signature Barbra recording. Give yourself a gift this Christmas. This is one present you will enjoy "unwrapping" the entire season.
Barbra Streisand: Christmas Memories (2001) August 20, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
In October of 2001, Barbra Streisand released her thirty-ninth album entitled, CHRISTMAS MEMORIES. This would actually be Barbra Streisand's second Holiday album, since THE CHRISTMAS ALBUM in 1967. This Christmas album lives up to the reputation of Barbra's first Holiday album and it really puts me into that Christmas mood.
I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
As much as I love Barbra's rendition, Frank Sinatra's rendition, although I am not Frank fan, is so much better and more Christmas-E. I love his rendition.
A CHRISTMAS LOVE SONG
A great song with a the strong Holiday spirit.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR'S EVE?
Well, I'll be with my family in Haddonfield, NJ, where my father's Beatles' band will be playing from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm (NJ-Philly time), an hour away from the year of 2006.
I REMEMBER
Great.
SNOWBOUND
Great.
IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE MISTLETOE
Beautiful.
CHRISTMAS LULLABY
This is another Christmas Spirit filled song.
CHRISTMAS MEM'RIES
The album's title track, but with a slightly different spelling. Great song.
GROWN-UP CHRISTMAS LIST
Both Barbra Streisand & Amy Grant have their own renditions of this song and both of them are simply beautiful.
AVE MARIA
Great.
CLOSER
Beautiful.
ONE GOD
This song title is very true. There is only one God and that God is God, Himself. Beautiful song.
CHRISTMAS MEMORIES is the Holiday album for everyone: Children of all ages, Teens, Adults, Senior Citizens. This album is very pleasing and it will most certainly put you into the Holiday Spirit. Pick up a copy of Barbra's second Christmas album. Oh, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
You'll never forget this Christmas December 21, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Buying this CD will surely make your Christmas one to remember. I am a great fan of Streisand and I have grown with her voice since I was 10 years old. I bought her first CHristmas Album when I was 15 and it was thrilling...so you can imagine how thrilled I was to get hold of her second piece of artistic work...her voice is angelic as she sings Ave Maria (I wish she could have sung it during my wedding Mass).
This is not a CD for just the festive season but for all seasons!! Thanks Barbra for making a wonderful Christmas
Have Yourself An Ecumenical Christmas! December 14, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I'm so glad I read the Amazon critic Jerry McCulley's review above before I posted my own. I was about to use the same, "What's a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn doing recording a Christmas album?" line. So much for originality on my part. Of course, as McCulley notes, it's hardly Streisand's first attempt at a holiday album, and in fact, her 1967 release A CHRISTMAS ALBUM is considered a classic of the genre. CHRISTMAS MEMORIES is a much different album, however. For one thing, most of the tracks are NOT traditional carols or well-known holiday themed pop songs. Sure it begins with "I'll Be Home For Christmas," and it does include the seasonal-but-not-really-Christmas standard "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" There's a classical nod with Schubert's "Ave Maria" (done her way, with some brassy coloration here and there--a little nose thumbing toward the critics of CLASSICAL BARBRA, perhaps?). But most of the material on the album is actually not your standard Christmas album fare. In fact, much of it was totally unfamiliar to me. So much the better, I'd say: who doesn't welcome a surprise at Christmas?
It almost doesn't matter if songs like Marilyn and Alan Bergman's "Christmas Mem'ries" and "Christmas Love Song" or David Foster's "Grown Up Christmas List" actually become standards or not. They're well suited for Streisand, and that's what matters at the end of the (Christmas) day.
Since I'm only just getting around to this album in 2004 (I'm admirer, but not really a hardcore fan), I didn't immediately notice the release date was three years ago. The fact that this album was in fact recorded in 2001 seems somehow significant (even if it actually was recorded BEFORE September 11). The melancholy edge to many of the songs seem all the more poignant in light of the horror this nation and the world endured that year. Coincidence? Well, Barbra dedicated the album to a recently deceased friend (Stephan Weiss, husband of designer Donna Karan), and the whistfulness of at least some of the songs was no doubt related to that loss. But they took on an even more universal significance in light of the tragedy of 9/11. Streisand was never really the rockin'-around-the-Christas-tree type, but the relative somberness of her second holiday album turned out to be eerily appropriate for the year of its release.
What's also almost uncannily appropriate is the final track, "One God." For a "nice Jewish girl," or rather a sophisticated Jewish woman and artist to do an honest Christmas album, some kind of acknowledgement that she is stepping outside of her own tradition is necessary. But reminding the listener of the universality of the truths behind the major religions is neither inappropriate nor "unseasonal." While there are those who might object to the inclusion of an ecumenical anthem like "One God" (at least on a Christmas album), others will find it a solace in the song's openhearted embrace of all humanity. It may have been inadvertent, but it was a message we needed during the holidays in 2001. We still do.
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