Thanksgiving and Christmas are the topic of discussion on The Christmas Show of My Merry Christmas. In this segment we explore the Thanksgiving anthem that has become a favored song of Thanksgiving, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, which we feature in this episode.
The great and beautiful rendition we share comes from Broken Bow Music.
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is a 300-year old song, familiar in the ancient Christian world. The hymn has an amazing backstory that we tell in this episode. Here are the lyrics to this song of Thanksgiving;
1Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing;
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount; I’m fixed upon it:
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come.
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wand’ring from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/comethoufount.png6281200Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2025-10-26 21:02:402025-10-26 21:02:40Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
For many who suffer from an unforeseen accident, seasonal depression, overwhelming problems or just plain stress Christmas can be difficult to celebrate. Embracing the spiritual may be a way to enjoy a meaningful Christmas.
In the latest episode of The Christmas Show at MyMerryChristmas we explore the Christmas When You Can’t. It’s not about Christmas in hard times it is about Christmas when one is having a hard time.
Is it possible to have a Christmas song that is famous and yet unknown?
That is, in essence, the Legend of Ricky Bland.
In this musical episode we tell the story of Ricky, his miserable Christmas, and the Christmas song from 1987 that you may have heard then but you have not heard since.
Ricky is the epitome of the one-hit Christmas wonder.
We bill it as the Most Depressing Christmas song of all time.
For you, well, it may just rock.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/rickybland.png6281200Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2025-09-06 18:03:492025-09-06 18:03:49The Legend of Ricky Bland
Christmas Past is a term that conjures up a lot of images in the mind. In those two words we are instantly reminded of things that are precious to us.
The power of Christmas past is evident in nearly all that we do to celebrate the season. Our music is filled with the golden oldies of Christmas, our decorating yields to even ancient practices of yore, and our foods are traditionally festive and have been so since before we were born.
We love to celebrate in ways that are old, to remember of how Christmas used to be, and to honor the things, places and people of the past. Christmas is, if anything, honored by time and cherished for what it has always been.
Nobody knows that better than Brian Earl, host of the Christmas Past Podcast and author of a new book titled – what else? – Christmas Past.
I’ve been wanting to talk with Brian for a long time. If anyone understands my interest and even slightly obsessive history with Christmas past, it’s Brian Earl. As he says – he’s not a historian, he is a storyteller.
And there are a lot of stories to tell about Christmas of the past.
In this far ranging episode of our own podcast Brian takes us on his Christmas journey. It is a journey that not only started in his childhood but also a journey that deliciously never ends.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/christmaspast.png6281200Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2022-11-19 01:26:202022-11-19 01:35:18Christmas Past with Brian Earl
The Baby of Bethlehem is the topic of this very personal episode of the Merry Little Podcast.
We sing of Him in song and celebrate the Nativity as a part of every Christmas – but why?
Based on this sincere question from a listener we discuss the tender mercies of Christmas and the effect it has on the living and the dead.
How does one without faith makes sense of it all? Our listener celebrates the season year round, enjoys great traditions of family and joy, and yet cannot connect the merriment to the manger. He wants to understand without the preachy demands of church.
So we explore why The Baby is Christmas in simple, fundamental terms of truth.
We find that in these hard times The Baby is more relevant and important than ever.
What fascinates the most is that they knew He was coming. His birth was anticipated like no other and that theme of anticipation has carried over to our modern celebrations of Christmas thousands of years later.
But how can we celebrate Him in the shadow of Santa, Christmas trees, snowmen and stockings? We find that it is okay, that each of the elements of Christmas we cherish, even those of a secular nature, can add to the light of Christmas.
Also featured is another great Christmas song from Angie Killian and Shawna Edwards. Their work – performed by children – teaches the beauty of the story of The Baby and we’re grateful for it.
This episode also features recent work by Santa’s Sleigh, a merry little outreach effort of the Merry Forums of MyMerryChristmas.com to give back each Christmas. This true story illustrates how the simple principle of anonymous giving elevates the many who focus on the one or the few.
The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square are featured in this merry episode about Christmas in our own backyard.
We are local to Salt Lake City and enjoy a wide variety of Christmas culture. This includes the magnificent downtown venue of Temple Square, home to the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Temple Square is famously decorated for Christmas and features one of the largest Christmas light displays in the world. It also has stunning Nativity displays and art. The several buildings house crowds of all sizes to accommodate performances from local artists and groups.
The most famous of these groups is the Tabernacle Choir, who has called Temple Square home since the 1860s. They first performed in the still-standing Tabernacle, for which the Choir is named. In their history of touring and regular concerts no other activity by the Choir is as well known as their annual Christmas concert, which is featured on PBS in a nationally aired broadcast every holiday season.
The Christmas concerts by the Tabernacle Choir feature the Orchestra at Temple Square, a hand bell choir, dancers and actors from local companies. Nearly all local performers are volunteers. It is a Choir custom to invite renown guest artists to perform each year.
Past performers include Broadway stars Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Angela Lansbury, Kelli O’Hara, Santino Fontana and Laura Osnes; R&B singer Gladys Knight; the late jazz singer Natalie Cole; pop singer David Archuleta; legendary newscasters Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw; historian David McCullough; the Muppets from “Sesame Street”; actors Jane Seymour, Hugh Bonneville, Richard Thomas, the late Ed Herrmann, John Rhys-Davies, Roma Downey, the late Peter Graves, Claire Bloom, Michael York and Martin Jarvis; opera stars Renée Fleming, Deborah Voigt, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel, Nathan Gunn, Alfie Boe, Sissel, Rolando Villazón and four Metropolitan Opera soloists and the London-based a cappella group, The King’s Singers. Collectively, the featured guests have garnered 34 Grammy Awards, 19 TonyAwards, 14 Emmy Awards, 10 Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTAAwards, one Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an OlivierAward.
These concerts are a massive effort.
In this merry episode we speak with Scott Barrick of the Tabernacle Choir about everything that goes into getting these concerts produced. This episode features a healthy dose of Tabernacle Choir music and information about a new two-hour holiday special airing on PBS before Christmas.
But that’s not all. In this episode we also hear from two other artists performing on Temple Square – Allie Gardner, who with Wade Farr performs a haunting version of O Come O Come Emmanuel. That song is the oldest Christmas carol on record and we tell its fascinating backstory.
We also share the incredible version of The First Noel performed last Christmas by Bryson and Tierra Jones, a must-hear tear-jerking arrangement of the classic Christmas song by Jared Pierce.
We are pleased to present our annual and traditional episode of new Christmas music.
This is far and away our most popular episode every year and it has nothing to do with the host. These featured artists graciously offer up their music for review and allow us to include them in this special episode.
Evidently you love it too. Last year’s episode has not only been listened to more than a quarter of a million times it is still going strong, drawing downloads in the thousands weekly.
This episode is even better that one. With us approaching our 2nd pandemic Christmas these great Christmas creators are all conveying through their music exactly what it is that we feel, what we value in Christmas and how we want this Christmas to be.
It is, at the end of the day, all about love. We did not plan for this theme (or any theme at all) for this episode it has just spontaneously happened. Please listen and enjoy, especially for those artists who took the time to talk with us to share some of the backstories of these great songs.
We encourage you to visit these links below, to buy their songs and albums and to let them know through your own reviews how you feel about their music:
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/christmasislove.jpg6281200Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2021-11-12 03:10:272021-11-12 11:17:21Christmas is Love: New Christmas Music of 2021
Great Christmas podcasts are made of one very simple ingredient: love.
That is the conclusion of two very different podcasts we feature in this episode.
One is two years old and has published dozens of episodes. The other is brand new, only weeks old.
Yet the commonality in their creation and the motivation for bringing it all online is surprisingly the same. In fact, we have found this in nearly every other podcast we have featured and we claim the very same for our own.
In this merry episode we talk with Rikki Meece of the Sleigh Bells and Mistletoe Christmas Podcast, a general Christmas podcast that dives deep into just about any Christmas subject. In a world of specialized Christmas podcasts Sleigh Bells and Mistletoe dares to cover it all.
We discuss with Rikki how her background in radio influences the creation and production of SBMX and how she manages to cover even more of the broad topics of Christmas by expanding the podcast’s presence on social media.
We also talk with Mark and Doug of the brand new Eggnogs and Yulelogs podcast, which has only been online just the past few weeks.
These creative guys have decided to cover the already-covered topic of Hallmark movies. But they do it with their own creative take – and, well, you just have to hear them explain it. They are fun, they are entertaining and they bring a lot of Christmas cheer.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/greatpod2.jpg6281200Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2021-11-09 03:00:352021-11-09 03:14:15Great Christmas Podcasts, Part 2 – Finding the Christmas in Christmas Podcasts
Christmas podcasts have exploded in number over the past couple of years. A decade ago there were just a handful of us podcasting Christmas. Now there are several hundred.
How do you sort all that out? What are the truly great podcasts of Christmas?
Sure, that is a subjective thing. But if you want a balanced look at the Best of Christmas Podcasts, we point you to a two-month project that surveyed listeners, Christmas publications, Christmas radio stations, Christmas communities, Christmas podcasters and podcast experts.
But that effort selected just 10 podcasts out of the hundreds online to identify. This merry little episode focuses on some other vote getters. We spotlight just a few more podcasts we think you need to know about.
First up is Totally Rad Christmas, a podcast that burst onto the scene last year with complete energy for the 1980s Christmas.
While that’s a podcast exploring the culture of Christmas from the 80s we dig deeper into a specific area of Christmas culture through the celebration of Christmas TV specials with Advent Calendar House podcast.
