A jazz trio record that somehow became the sound of December. Vince Guaraldi wrote the score for the 1965 Peanuts special in a few weeks and ended up with something durable: 'Linus and Lucy' bouncing on that left-hand vamp, 'Christmas Time Is Here' drifting along in waltz time with a children's choir, 'Skating' falling like the snow it is named after. Guaraldi plays it as a working San Francisco pianist rather than a man scoring cartoons, which is exactly why it still holds up. Cut to 180g for the Original Jazz Classics Series.