About The Song
“Christmas Shopping” is the title track of Buck Owens’ second Christmas album for Capitol Records, released in 1968 under the name Christmas Shopping. Where his 1965 set Christmas with Buck Owens and His Buckaroos focused on a mix of carols and original novelties, this later LP leaned more heavily on new songs written for the project. The title tune, credited to Owens, was cut with the Buckaroos and used to anchor the album’s theme of everyday holiday life rather than purely sentimental scenes.
The sessions were produced in Buck’s usual way for the late 1960s: a small, tight band tracked quickly, with minimal overdubs and a clear emphasis on guitars and rhythm. Recorded either at Capitol’s Hollywood studios or at Buck’s own Bakersfield facility (sources differ on specific dates), the performance keeps the classic Bakersfield ingredients in place even though it’s a seasonal record. The track runs just over two minutes, making it an easy fit for country radio playlists alongside his regular singles.
Lyrically, “Christmas Shopping” is written from the viewpoint of an ordinary working man trying to get through the rush of the season. He talks about crowded stores, long lines, empty shelves and the pressure of finding the right presents before time runs out. Instead of painting an idealised winter wonderland, the song focuses on the errands, last-minute decisions and mild frustrations that many listeners would recognise from their own December routines. Beneath the complaints, though, there is an implied warmth: he keeps going because the gifts are for people he cares about.
The music wraps that everyday story in Owens’ familiar Bakersfield sound. A steady two-step beat, bright electric guitar, pedal steel and bass drive the track, with short instrumental fills between vocal lines and harmony responses from the Buckaroos on the chorus. There are no strings, choirs or sleigh bells; the arrangement could almost be a regular Buck Owens single with a Christmas lyric laid on top. That choice helps the song sit naturally in his catalogue, sounding like Buck first and a holiday novelty second.
Within the album, “Christmas Shopping” provides a kind of thematic headline. Other tracks on the LP deal with family gatherings, absent loved ones and the mix of joy and loneliness that can come with the holidays, but the title song keeps the focus on the practical side of getting ready. Sequenced early in the running order, it sets the tone for a record that treats Christmas not as a distant, sentimental story but as something happening in busy homes, small towns and storefronts across Buck’s world.
Although “Christmas Shopping” was not one of Owens’ major chart smashes, it picked up seasonal airplay on country stations and has remained in circulation through reissues of the 1968 album and holiday compilations of his work. Country-Christmas playlists often pair it with “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” to show two sides of his approach to the season: one built on a child’s-eye joke about Santa, the other on the adult reality of crowded shops and ticking clocks. For listeners exploring Buck Owens beyond his regular hits, the song offers a snapshot of how the Bakersfield sound was applied to everyday holiday themes at the end of the 1960s.
Over the years, “Christmas Shopping” has become a modest staple of country holiday programming. It appears on CD and digital reissues of Christmas Shopping, on box sets that collect Owens’ Capitol recordings and on various-artists Christmas anthologies that spotlight classic country contributions to the season. Even if it never reached the iconic status of his non-holiday singles like “Act Naturally” or “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” it stands as a characteristic Buck Owens performance: short, direct, and rooted in the sounds and situations of everyday life, just dressed up in tinsel for December.
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Lyric
I got ten toy soldiers for Billy Joe
I got coloring book for Sue
I got a little toy train for Danny boy
And a cowboy suit for Lou
I got a talkin’ baby doll for Cindy
I got a pair o’roller skates for Jane
And baby, if we ever have any more kids
Christmas shopping’s gonna drive me insane
Gonna go this Christmas shopping
Well, I wonder if I’ll ever get through
I tried to get everybody somethin’ that they wanted
But I didn’t know what to get you
I read the kids letters to Santa Claus
I read ’em over one by one
And I surely like to get my hands on the fella that said Christmas shoppin’s fun
I got ten toy soldiers for Billy Joe
I got a coloring book for Sue
I got a little toy train for Danny boy
And a cowboy suit for Lou
I got a talkin’ baby doll for Cindy
I got a pair o’roller skates for Jane
And baby if we ever have any more kids
Christmas shoppin’s gonna drive me insane
Well, I must’ve walked a hundred miles or more
I went to every store in town
My feet started swellin’ and my head started achin’
And I couldn’t find a place to sit down
But to tell you the truth well, I really don’t mind it
I could even walk another mile
‘Cause on Christmas mornin’
When they open up the presents
Well it’s worth it just to see them smile
I got ten toy soldiers for Billy Joe
I got coloring book for Sue
I got a little toy train for Danny boy
And a cowboy suit for Lou
I got a talkin’ baby doll for Cindy
I got a pair o’roller skates for Jane
And baby if we ever have any more kids
Christmas shoppin’s gonna drive me insane…