The Christmas Spirit is Johnny Cash's 1963 holiday album for Columbia, and it sounds like nobody else's Christmas record. Alongside a handful of standards like "Blue Christmas," "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Silent Night," Cash wrote a run of his own seasonal songs, including the title track, "The Gifts They Gave" and "Christmas as I Knew It," a Depression-era memory piece co-written with June Carter and Jan Howard. His deep baritone and a few spoken passages give it a plainspoken warmth that suits a quiet December evening. This edition is pressed on color vinyl in a die-cut sleeve.