Gavin MacLeod and Marion Ross host a Christmas celebration that features classic performances of popular holiday standards and traditional carols performed, throughout decades past, by an array of artists, including Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Brenda Lee, Eddy Arnold, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Mitch Miller and the Gang, Gene Autry, Jimmy Boyd, the Supremes, Rosemary Clooney, the Lennon Sisters, Burl Ives, Mahalia Jackson, Mitzi Gaynor, Julie Andrews, the Beach Boys, the Carpenters, Jose Feliciano, the Drifters, Ronnie Spector, the Harry Simeone Chorale, and David Bowie.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. Ives began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942 he appeared in Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, and then became a major star of CBS radio. In the 1960s he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". A popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s, Ives's best-known film roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart (1949) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), as well as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ives is often remembered for his voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which continues to air annually around Christmas.