Orrin Hatch

What would Christmas be without chestnuts roasting on an open fire and yuletide carols being sung by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Fortunately, with Orrin Hatch’s Christmas Eve, we’ll never have to know. The album mixes standards like “Carol of the Bells” and “Joy to the World” with Hatch originals, like the big-band number “Skatin’ with My Baby.” Guest vocalists and smooth production values lend the record an American Idol vibe at times, though “Stille Nacht” evokes Adolf Hitler singing “O Tannenbaum” on South Park’s Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics. The carols seem innocuous, but Sean Hannity has hawked the disc on his “Pro-America Song Club,” and Amazon.com reports that people who bought this album also purchased the enhanced version of Toby Keith’s Shock’n Y’all. Well, hidey ho.