 According to John's introduction in the liner notes, as opposed to doing an album of his versions of already famous songs, he chose to do a compilation with some of his favorite holiday songs by other artists.It was initially released exclusively to Hear Music outlets in Starbucks coffee shops on 10 November 2005; the sales campaign pledged to donate two dollars from every sale to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.The following year, on 10 October 2006, the album was re-released to the general market; however, six songs were omitted from the new release.