The Lost Christmas Eve

Infobox Album |
Name = The Lost Christmas Eve
Type = Studio album
Artist = Trans-Siberian Orchestra


Released = October 12, 2004
Recorded =
Genre = Symphonic Metal
Length = 66:46
Label = Lava Records
Producer = Paul O'Neill and Robert Kinkel
Reviews =
*Allmusic: Rating|3|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:63420r5aq48j link] |
Last album = Beethoven's Last Night
(2000)
This album = "The Lost Christmas Eve"
(2004)
Next album = Night Castle
(2008)

The Lost Christmas Eve is the fourth album from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was released on October 12th, 2004, and is the last album in their "Christmas trilogy", with Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996) and The Christmas Attic (1998) coming before it. All three albums, as well as their "The Ghosts Of Christmas Eve" DVD, were featured in the "The Christmas Trilogy" box set.

toryline

In this symphonic tale, the little angel from this album's two Christmas predecessors is once again sent on a mission from God: to find a person who is most like the image of Jesus. However, unlike the other trips, the angels can only use his wings for when he arrives on Earth and when he leaves. Looking for a likely place to search, the angel lands in New York City.

As soon as he touches the ground, he notices a street performer weaving a story about the ball of the Wizards of Winter to a group of children. He then enters a hotel, and as he enters the ballroom, he watches the ghosts in there dance around. Then he leaves and walks into a blues club, where a jazz band is playing music, eventually the whole bar gets together and starts singing along with the jazz band, except for one man who leaves without a word.

The angel noticed that the man left a trail of blood. Paul Ryder stars in this album. The blood came from a wound in the man's heart and only angels are able to see this. As he followed the man, who had been the last one home from work, the angel saw that this man did not like Christmas one bit. Due to his curiosity, the angel peered into the man's heart to find the reason behind the man's yuletide hatred.

As the angel delved into the man's past, he saw that he had not always hated Christmas and in fact loved it like any other child. His family was a good Christian one and he had been taught that all of man are created in God's image. He eventually got married and his wife became pregnant. On the night of the birth, things were going as planned and normal. However, the man then noticed that there were many doctors rushing for his wife's room, but there were none leaving. The doctor told him that after the birth, she had hemorrhaged and that, unfortunately, they were unable to save her. When they gave him his son, the baby looked strange. The doctor explained that because attention was focused on the mother, the baby had been neglected air and had suffered severe brain damage; he would be unable to function as a normal person in adulthood and would be lucky if he learned to talk. Enraged by this outcome, the man shouted at God, saying that he saw nothing of God in his son. The man gave the baby back to the nurse and asked if the child could be placed into a facility.

After seeing this, the angel let go of the man, who did not notice the angel peering into him. He later encountered a young child in front of a toy store, who claimed to be staying with her parents on a third floor room of the hotel across the street. She asked him if he had a son. The man responded with a short and gruff "No," which reminded him of his son. The man told the girl to go back to her room, then called a cab and set off to find his son.

Eventually, he arrived at a hospital, similar to the one where his son was born, and asked about his son. A nurse took him to a room where the son, now a grown man, was rocking cocaine babies to sleep. When the man asked if his son could talk, the nurse, realizing that it had been a while since they had met, said "No, but he's a good listener." After so many years, father and son were reunited.

The man asked his son to move out of the complex he lived in to stay with his father, to which he agreed. They then took a cab to the hotel across the street from the toy store to find the girl and asked for the girl's room. However, strangely enough, there was no third floor to the hotel, nor did they have a room with the same number the girl had told him. Confused, the man returned to the cab with his son. The man then took out his briefcase and dumped its contents out on the sidewalk. The son gave a puzzled look, to which the man explained that he was going to quit his job to get a job at the hospital where his son worked. The son gleefully smiled.

When the angel returned to Heaven, God asked the angel who was most like Jesus. The angel at first gave the name of the man's son, but then changed this to the name of the story teller, the jazz player, the man, and all of the other people he had seen. It was at this point that the angel realized that at Christmastime, almost everyone appears to be in Jesus's image.

Track listing

#"Faith Noel"
#"The Lost Christmas Eve"
#'Christmas Dreams"
#"Wizards in Winter"
#"Remember"
#"Anno Domine"
#"Christmas Concerto"
#"Queen Of The Winter Night"
#"Christmas Nights In Blue"
#"Christmas Jazz"
#"Christmas Jam"
#"Siberian Sleigh Ride"
#"What Is Christmas?"
#"For The Sake Of Our Brother"
#"The Wisdom Of Snow"
#"Wish Liszt" (Toy Shop Madness)
#"Back To A Reason (Part II)"
#"Christmas Bells, Carousels & Time"
#"What Child Is This?"
#"O’ Come All Ye Faithful"
#"Christmas Canon Rock"
#"Different Wings"
#"Midnight Clear"

References to other media

"Back To A Reason (Part II)" is a sequel to the Savatage song "Back To A Reason", on their 2001 release "Poets and Madmen".

"Queen of Winter Night" is a re-working of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opera "The Magic Flute" (specifically, the "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" aria).

"Wish Liszt" is a re-working of "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" by Franz Liszt.

"Christmas Canon Rock" is a re-working of "Christmas Canon" (originally found on The Christmas Attic). "Christmas Canon Rock" does not feature a choir (which "Christmas Canon" did), instead using electric guitars, a drumkit, a bass guitar, guitar solos and a solo female vocalist.

"Wizards In Winter" is an instrumental song that gained fame as the backing music for Carson Williams' home-made light show.

External links

* [http://www.trans-siberian.com Trans-Siberian Orchestra Homepage]
* [http://www.trans-siberian.com/discography/lostxmaseve.shtml Official The Lost Christmas Eve]
* [http://www.trans-siberian.com/discography/lostxmas-story.shtml The Lost Christmas Eve Story]