Tasha Layton’s Christmas Album Includes Christ-Centric ‘Home Alone’ Theme: It Was a ‘Beautiful Addition’

Tasha Layton says she wanted to deliver “joy” to her fans with her first full-length Christmas album, and so far this season, she’s done exactly that, with three songs entering the latest Billboard Christian Airplay chart.

All are featured on her album This Is Christmas, which she is performing as part of the K-LOVE Christmas Tour. Three tunes are in the Billboard Top 50: Make It to Christmastime, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and Hang Up Your Stockin’. Her husband, Keith Everette Smith, produced the album.

“I wanted people to feel joy because I think when the weight of the world comes against us and against our fate, joy is one of the first things to go,” Layton told Christian Headlines. “And so I wanted some worship on it, but I also wanted some fun songs on that, too, to bring some joy.”

She recently delivered an additional dose of joy with the single We Three Kings, which includes a music video with illustrations from the popular new children’s book, The Wise Men Who Found Christmas (Raymond Arroyo).

As part of that dose of joy, she wants listeners to embrace a biblical message: It’s better to give than to receive. A holiday season focused on giving, she said, is the best way to “de-stress” during Christmastime.

“I do have a song on the record that just came out called Giving Christmas Away,” she told Christian Headlines. “… And when you make that your focus of the holidays, whether it’s going and serving in a nursing home, or a soup kitchen or Operation Christmas Child or Angel Tree Project. … [and] trying to get you and your kids and your family in the spirit of giving rather than getting – I think that’s probably the best thing you could do. It really does fill you with such hope and faith when you give. I get so excited about giving gifts, just because of what it represents. And so Jesus being the greatest gift we ever got, I feel like that’s the best way to sort of capture that spirit of Christmas.”

The album, she added, is “sort of like a variety show,” with nostalgic songs mixed in with originals, big-band tunes and jazz.

One of the songs, Somewhere In My Memory, was part of the Home Alone soundtrack and was originally written by John Williams and Leslie Bricusse. That tune was the movie’s theme song.

“We redid the song, and when we were searching for the original lyrics, it talks about Christ,” Layton told Christian Headlines. The original song included a verse, “Christ the joy of our Christmas,” that was included in Layton’s version but was not part of the film soundtrack.

“We were so excited to find that as kind of like a little treasure of gold,” she said. “… It was a beautiful addition to the album.”

Photo courtesy: ©Jason Davis Photography for K-LOVE Fan Awards, used with permission.

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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