A Lawrence Welk Christmas - The Definitive Guide

Welkome

Welcome to what I like to think of as The Definitive Guide to a Lawrence Welk Christmas. Without question, Lawrence Welk was one of the 20th century's most successful pop icons, and there is no shortage of information to be found online and in various libraries about his life, his career, and his family. Yet, while there are also numerous online resources dedicated to Christmas, we've found very little online dedicated to the love of Christmas shared by Lawrence Welk, his musical family, and his millions of faithful fans. If you love Lawrence Welk and Christmas, we hope you'll enjoy exploring our site.

Why do all this?

Well, without going into great detail, I was born to two parents who listened to nothing but classical music. Fortunately, I had older siblings who introduced me to the joys of rock and roll.

So you see, the link to Lawrence Welk is perfectly obvious! OK, that's not true. It took marrying a cheesehead from Wisconsin before I ever actually heard any Lawrence Welk music. Sure, I knew who he was, I had heard the jokes, and so on and so forth. But until the first Christmas that we were dating, when the woman I now call my wife played a Lawrence Welk Christmas tape for me, I really hadn't heard any of his music.

My wife married me not because I asked, "Will you marry me?" She married me because, in the second Christmas season we were dating, I asked, "Can we listen to Lawrence Welk?" She was mine.

Fast forward to November, 2003. Being the completist that I am, I was consumed with two questions: 1) Did I possess every Christmas song ever recorded by America's Music Man? and 2) Are the versions on recent CD releases the same as those on the LPs I managed to dig up at used record stores? Even with the Web at my fingertips, finding definitive answers to these questions was, and continues to be, a difficult task. I created this web site not only to chart my own progress but also in hopes that the next person to come along who's as crazy as I am will have an easier time of it.

Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!