Draft:The Beatles Christmas Album

Starting in December 1963, the Beatles began an annual tradition of recording Christmas messages for their rapidly growing fan base. The recordings were edited and issued on flexi-discs through the Official Beatles Fan Club in England. These records were not available for sale, but were mailed to fan club members. In 1964, the U.S. fan club began mailing the annual Christmas records to its members and the tradition continued through December 1969.

By December 1970, The Beatles Fan Club still existed although the Beatles had announced the break up of the band in April 1970. Because of this, there was not a Christmas flexi made that year, instead, The Beatles (English) Fan Club released an album (LP) titled "From Us to You" consisting of a collection of the previously released Christmas flexi-discs and in the U.S.A, the seven messages were issued as "The Beatles' Christmas Album" in February 1971.

Artwork Design:

"From Us to You" consisted of a white background on the front with the LP title written in black above a copy of the 1963 UK Christmas flexi picture sleeve. The back of the cover is also a white background with the remaining six front picture sleeve covers of the Fan Club Christmas flexis in black and white.

"The Beatles' Christmas Album" was packaged in a blue background cover. The front side has five rows and five columns of cubes that have black and white pictures of the Beatles as a group and as individuals through the years. The back cover has black and white images of the picture sleeves that originally accompanied the front the flexi-discs 1964 through 1969. The album design is credited to "GROCK IT!" and photo creations to Robert Bauman.