Christmas Eve and Other Stories is the debut studio album by the American rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was released on October 15, 1996, through Lava Records and Atlantic Records. It is the first album in the band's "Christmas trilogy", with The Christmas Attic (1998) and The Lost Christmas Eve (2004) coming afterward. All three albums, as well as their The Ghosts of Christmas Eve DVD, were featured in the box set of The Christmas Trilogy. The album's cover art was created by Edgar Jerins. The album became one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all time in the U.S. and has been certified 3× platinum by the RIAA for selling 3 million copies in the US. As of November 2016, the album track "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" has sold 1.3 million downloads, becoming one of the best-selling Christmas songs of all time in the US as well. Commercial performance , Christmas Eve and Other Stories was the ninth best-selling Christmas/holiday album in the United States during the Nielsen SoundScan era of music sales tracking (1991 – present), with sales of 3,430,000 copies according to SoundScan. On November 28, 2011, Christmas Eve and Other Stories was certified 3× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipment of three million copies in the United States. Plot summary On Christmas Eve in 1995, a young man wanders into a bar and orders a whiskey. Soon after, he is joined by an old man who soon begins a story, telling of how God sent an angel down to Earth to find and bring him an example of kindness done in the spirit of Christmas ("An Angel Came Down"). While flying down, he overhears church bells ringing carols ("O Come All Ye Faithful/O Holy Night"), as he flew closer, a single voice rang out in the church, later joined by a full choir ("A Star to Follow"). With the song over, the angel continued his search, the skies now snowing as he flies over the world ("First Snow"). Flying over the Ural Mountains, he notices a small village, where he takes upon the disguise of a human to approach the people ("The Silent Nutcracker"). The angel asks a village peasant what Russian hearts desire for Christmas, with the peasant simply answering "peace on earth" ("A Mad Russian's Christmas"). The angel returns to flight, thinking about the birth of Christ, and it's impact upon