(Listen)

Peggy wrote two Christmas songs for release on a Capitol Records single in late 1959. For “The Tree” she set lyrics to Robert Schumann’s “The Happy Farmer” from his Album for the Young (1848). She recorded it with a children’s choir on October 10, 1959, along with its flipside, “The Christmas List.” The following year both songs were included on her only full Christmas album, which included other songs she wrote or co-wrote: “The Christmas Riddle,” “Don’t Forget to Feed the Reindeer,” and the album’s title song, “Christmas Carousel.”