Nearly 20 years into her recording career, Mary Chapin Carpenter is scheduled to release her first ever Christmas album. For the selections on Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas (Zoë/Rounder), Carpenter and co-producer John Jennings took a far different approach to recording a holiday album.

Rather than simply lending her singular, distinctive voice to time-worn Christmas standards, Carpenter wrote her own set of seasonal songs which explore the many meanings and emotions that Christmas evokes in each of us.  These songs, mixed with a few hand-picked gems from other writers and rarely heard traditional tunes, will speak directly to long-time Mary Chapin Carpenter fans and introduce a new audience to her warmth, intelligence and unmistakable voice. These are not merely holiday songs, they are classic Mary Chapin Carpenter songs that artfully capture the spirit of the season.