Bear’s Holiday Celebration

Young fans of Jim Henson and the Disney Channel’s Bear in the Big Blue House will revel in this holiday celebration of 20 short seasonal songs exuberantly sung by gentle Bear and other characters like Doc Hogg and the raspy-voiced mouse, Tutter. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Kwanzaa are represented here in eclectic songs that range from triumphant (“A Berry Bear Christmas”) to soothing (“Just Listen”) to forlornly earnest (Jack the hound singing “The Best Present Ever”) to a happy medley, “The Woodland Valley Carols,” that indulges in holiday twists such as “Oh, come all ye otters” and “On the fifth day of Clamsmas.” In “That’s All I Want for Christmas,” Santa Hogg takes requests for “tons and tons of cheese” and “a hundred trillion clams.” A real favorite is the jazzy “Bat Dance” by Robert and Deena Cole: “You see, it’s all in the wings.” A wonderful quality to all the songs is that they’re clearly enunciated by the motley crew of fuzzy characters, so kids can actually hear the words. Heartfelt holiday cheer abounds in Peter Lurye’s impressive production that surely rivals the Muppets in inventiveness and kid appeal. Start listening to the Halloween songs in October and you and your kids will have the whole CD memorized by Christmas! –Karin Snelson