This is, quite simply, the two complete original Christmas albums in one package. Christmas Portrait is disc one, and An Old-Fashioned Christmas is disc two.
This set was released in most parts of the world in 1996, but didn't get released in the US until 1998. The only difference in the two releases is that the US version has rather extensive liner notes detailing the history of the Christmas recordings, from 1970 to 1984, and the international version of the set does not have those notes.
The entire Christmas Portrait album has been remixed in this collection. The most noticable part of this remix is that Karen's lead vocal was moved more to the front of the mix and reverb was added to it. The beginning of the song "Sleigh Ride" has a bit of an alternate vocal take as well. (This remix was done a few years earlier, as these same remixes appeared on the Time-Life Christmas With the Carpenters set in 1992. I'm not exactly sure when the remix was done, so I'm calling it the 1992 remix, although it could have been done in 1990 or 1991.) An Old-Fashioned Christmas was left in its original 1984 mix.
Produced by Richard Carpenter, Karen Carpenter and Jack Daugherty
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