This page is an attempt to gather Christmas-related Beatles items in one place, for reference and holiday enjoyment. Due to space limitations, it is nowhere near complete; for example, except for the brief audio clip you heard as this page loads, and the use of the 1969 Xmas disc cover as a background, the Beatles' seven annual fan club Christmas discs aren't here. Instead, I have chosen to display rarer, more obscure Beatles Christmas images. Unlike Bryan's Beatles Archives, most of the items in the Christmas Archives are not from my own collection (I wish!). If you have any sources or scans of Beatles Christmas images, please email me with info.
I used this as the inside of last year's Christmas card; I wish there were more, higher quality shots from this session!
Vee Jay records used this sleeve to squeeze out their last bit of Beatles profit during the 1964 Christmas shopping season. I believe their court case with Capitol records allowed them to market (over and over again) their Beatles recordings until the end of 1964. This is why Capitol released "The Early Beatles" LP in 1965. Capitol had their own Christmas marketing strategy in 1964; an example of the ridiculously rare cardboard standup display promoting Capitol's four Beatles LPs from 1964 is the link you used to get to this page.
John sent this card, along with eight pages of romantic prose, to his girlfriend Cynthia Powell at Christmas 1958. Cynthia, or course, would become John's first wife in 1962, about a week after Ringo joined the band.
In December, 1963, The Beatles fan club held two conventions: one in Liverpool, and one in London. The one held in London, pictured above, featured a performance by The Beatles for 4000 fans, and then the Fabs went behind the bar at the Wimbeldon Palais and chatted, shook hands, and signed autographs for everyone present. Let's see Mark Lapidos and Beatlefest top that! My theory is that many of the 1963 autographs offered for sale on the collector's market today come from this convention. The card behind George and Paul says "Happy Christmas Darling Paul".
bbarrow@NOSPAM.cruzio.com
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Thanks, Bryan