Music / Christmas Eve and Other Stories

An angel came down one night to the Earth...

Christmas Eve and Other Stories is the debut album by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, released on October 15, 1996, by Lava Records and Atlantic Records. It is rock opera about an angel who is sent by God to bring Him an example of human kindness done in the spirit of Christmas. Breakthrough Hit "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" was originally by Savatage, appearing on 1995's Dead Winter Dead, but was re-released in 1996 under the Trans-Siberian Orchestra name.

Tracklist:

1. "An Angel Came Down" (3:52)
2. "O Come All Ye Faithful/O Holy Night" (4:19)
3. "A Star to Follow" (3:49)
4. "First Snow" (3:53)
5. "The Silent Nutcracker" (2:22)
6. "A Mad Russian's Christmas" (4:42)
7. "The Prince or Peace" (3:33)
8. "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" (3:25)
9. "Good King Joy" (6:36)
10. "Ornament" (3:37)
11. "The First Noel" (0:55)
12. "Old City Bar" (6:18)
13. "Promises to Keep" (2:41)
14. "This Christmas Day" (4:20)
15. "An Angel Returned" (3:52)

Post-Script

1. "O Holy Night" (2:39)
2. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (1:16)

Christmas Songs and other tropes:

• All There in the Manual: The first half of the album, following the exposition in opening track, is largely instrumental, with only the last third telling an easy-to-follow story in the lyrics, but the full story is on the band's website.
• Bookends: The main story begins with "An Angel Came Down" and ends with "An Angel Returned". The last two tracks are short instrumentals that are unrelated to the story.
• Chaos of the Bells: "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" depicts a cellist performing "Carol of the Bells" on Christmas Eve in a war zone in protest of the war going on around him.
• Cherubic Choir: "Promises to Keep" and parts of "A Star to Follow" are performed by a children's choir. Notably, the former is replaced with a rock version for live performances and the latter is dropped completely.
• Christmas Miracle: A lost child who ran away from home is returned to her father on Christmas thanks in part to the angel's influence.
• Christmas Songs: In addition to the Christmas story, there are several tracks that adapt or interpolate Christmas carols.
• Epic Rocking: "Good King Joy" (6:36) and "Old City Bar" (6:18)
• Instrumentals: The first half of the album, including "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" is largely instrumental. The two "post-script" tracks are also instrumental.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The bartender claims he couldn't care less about the lost child outside the bar or anything else besides the bar, but takes some convincing another child (actually the angel) that if the little girl could go home on a brutal winter night, she would already be there. The bartender then proves he really does care about others when he takes all the money from the bar to put her on a taxi to the airport to send her on a plane back home.
• Mesodiplosis: "Old City Bar":
  "And the snow it was falling
  The neon was calling
  The music was low"
• Miniscule Rocking: "The First Noel" (0:55) and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (1:16)
• Mission from God: The angel's mission is explicitly stated as such in "An Angel Came Down".
  "An angel came down
  One night to the Earth
  A mission from God
  To find out the worth
  Of everything that
  His children had done
  Since that winter night
  The birth of His son"
• The Power of Rock: The angel believes music to be a sign of hope for humanity, even amid a brutal war.
• Ripped from the Headlines: "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" was composed in 1995 and inspired by the then ongoing Siege of Sarajevo, and in particular, a story of a cellist, Vedran Smailović, who returned to the city in 1992 to find Sarajevo in ruins and, rather than hiding in the bomb shelters, went to the town square, got up on the rubble of a fountain, and started playing Mozart and Beethoven, and eventually Christmas carols on his cello, even as the city was being shelled. The song has an orchestra and the rock band, representing the two sides of the battle, and a lone cellist representing Smailović bringing a spark of hope to the city. This origin is also why military imagery features so prominently in performances of it as part of the band's stage show and in the official music video.
• Rock Me, Amadeus!: "A Mad Russian's Christmas" is based on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker suite.
• Rock Opera: About an angel sent on a Mission from God to find someone who shows a meaningful act of kindness on Christmas.
• The Runaway: The third act of the story is about a little girl who ran away from home while her father prays for her return. The angel overhears the prayer and sets out to find her and convince someone to help her get back home.
• Song Style Shift: "Good King Joy" starts as a mostly instrumental rendition of "Joy to the World", shifts into a semi-original midsection with lyrics about The Three Wise Men, and returns to the first part.
• The Stinger: Two short acoustic instrumentals follow the story after several seconds of silence.
• Triumphant Reprise: "An Angel Returned", which features a celebratory choir after the angel accomplishes his mission.
• True Meaning of Christmas: Christmas is a time to show compassion for others, which is shown when the bartender takes all the money he made that day to help a lost child get back home.

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