When it came to Christmas, Elvis never grew up. The holiday season made him unabashedly sentimental. Purchasing Graceland gave him the opportunity to celebrate the holiday in style. The driveways and the main house were lined with blue lights, and in front were six eight-foot Christmas trees decorated in multicoloured lights.

Inside, the mansion was also completely decked out for the season, with the focus on a huge Christmas tree in the dining room. After dinner, everyone would gather around the piano to sing Christmas carols.

Although Elvis loved to receive gifts, his favourite Christmas activity was giving. His friends normally got cash bonuses. The presents for family members ranged from jewelry to new cars. Elvis loved their reactions to his extravagances.

After most of the guests went to bed or went home, Elvis and a few of the guys would bring out Lisa Marie's presents and put them under the tree. 

The early morning hours of Christmas Day were very often the best times at Graceland. Elvis would talk about his mother and about the Christmases of his boy hood. He would often say something like, "I wonder what all the poor folks are doing tonight. I wish I could feed all the poor kids and give them presents." 

He would reflect on grateful he was for his success. Then he would wait with the eagerness of a child for LIsa to awaken and find her presents under the tree. 

~ David Stanley Remembers

Elvis felt extremely proud and pleased with the Elvis TV special that had just aired on NBC at the beginning of December.After years of feeling stuck in mediocre films and stuck with mediocre material to sing, he had fought hard to make the kind of television show he'd wanted to make. He'd shaken off the advice of the not-so-easily-shaken Colonel Parker, who wanted his star client to make something along the lines of an hour of cozy Christmas carols.

Instead, Elvis had put together an incredibly exciting hour that paid tribute to his real rock 'n' roll roots while also showing himself to be an artist and entertainer still in his fighting prime: Elvis looking lean and mean in black leather. Elvis strapping on a guitar to jam with old band-mates Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana. Elvis looking dangerous and powerful and relevant all over again. Elvis putting his heart into his performances and truly enjoying himself. That's the Elvis that so many of us around him had wanted to see again for so long, and that's what he gave us in that TV special. Apparently a good portion of the country had been feeling the way we did about Elvis, because his show was watched by almost half the nation's TV viewers the night it aired and wound up with some of the year's highest ratings for any kind of program.

Elvis had gotten some rave reviews in the press, too, and the only thing that bothered him about the response to the show was that some people referred to it as a "Comeback Special." He felt he'd never stopped working hard at what he was doing, and even if the movies and soundtrack albums he'd put his energies into weren't always inspired, he didn't consider that he'd gone anywhere that he had to "come back" from. Still, he knew he'd done some exceptional work, and I was thrilled that this good friend of mine, the most talented man I knew, had really put those talents to use again, rocking and rolling like only he could.—

©George Klein: Elvis My Best Man