Mandisa, Matthew West ring in Colorado Christmas

Matthew West returns to Col­orado on Sat­ur­day, Dec. 3 with Man­disa for a Christ­mas con­cert.

The Heart of Christ­mas Tour will stop at Mis­sion Hills Church in Lit­tle­ton. Tick­ets are $25, $35 and $50.

The tour is in sup­port of West­’s Christ­mas CD (Octo­ber 2011) by the same name. The CD fea­tures sev­en new songs writ­ten by West, along with Vince Gill and Amy Grant lend­ing their voic­es to songs. The title track –“The Heart of Christ­mas” — calls the lis­ten­er to ditch the com­mer­cial­ism and focus on the heart of Christ­mas.

Live while you can, cher­ish the moment
The ones that you love, make sure they know it

The song is also the inspi­ra­tion for the movie “The Heart of Christ­mas” that will debut on the Gospel Music Chan­nel on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. East­ern time.

“One Last Christ­mas” is based on a true sto­ry, and is a heart-warm­ing and heart-wrench­ing song. The video is post­ed at the top.

On the first track “Come On Christ­mas,” Matthew’s voice range shines in a song that invokes 364 days of wait­ing for that mag­i­cal day of the year –

I left the lights up all year ’round
I just could­n’t bear the thought of tak­ing them down

Anoth­er orig­i­nal song I real­ly enjoyed was the last track, “Day After Christ­mas,” most­ly because of the mes­sage.

Even when Christ­mas is over
The light of the world is still here

And of course there are the clas­sics fea­tur­ing a jazzy ren­di­tion of “Jin­gle Bells” and a “O Come All Ye Faith­ful.” Sounds odd, but it works.

I just popped in Man­dis­a’s “It’s Christ­mas” CD (2008) and it is time­less, start­ing with a Motown inspired “What Christ­mas Means To Me.” The CD fea­tures such clas­sics as “Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy,” “O, Holy Night,” and “Silent Night.” With Man­disa, whose strong voice is rem­i­nis­cent of Tina Turn­er, expect a roof-rais­ing evening.