My mom loved my Christmas music, so I did an awful lot of it!

For me, hearing my voice is sometimes a little nauseating, especially at Christmas.

My mom and dad always tried to make Christmas special for us. We were poor, but it's funny because we had no idea.

I always felt like what I was doing wasn't selling toys; I was making a happy sound at Christmas. When people hear something so familiar, it brings them back to a special place, and that's been meaningful for me.

Christmas is never going to go away, and it's always going to be there. And there's always room for one more Christmas song, I think.

My parents were over the moon when I had some success with Christmas songs because that was the time of the year that meant so much to them. They were able to see their loved ones, and it was great to hear their son's voice on the radio while they visited.

I think there are a lot of people who really want to be famous, they really do. I don't. It sort of gets in the way of the everyday things that I do.

I've never been married, and I have no regrets about not starting my own family. I come from a large one, so there are so many people around all the time. I've been very happy, but I've never gotten married. That's about the size of it. I would have been a good father because I've been a father to my brothers' and sisters' children.

Most of our physical education teachers were just teachers, and they had to do the extra stuff on their own. I remember very vividly that they would hold a cane pole between two of the students down low, and we would all jump over it. And they would raise it and raise it and raise it.

I've recorded in Portuguese, too. I didn't set out to just sing ballads or romantic songs.

People are stubborn about what they perceive to be the right thing or the wrong thing, and it takes a long time to filter this human condition. There's a waiting period until people catch up. But if you have patience - which it takes when someone thinks differently from you - everybody always catches up. That patience is a wonderful virtue.

Dad would come home from doing odd jobs, and sometimes he'd come home late at night with lumber, and he'd rumble around with all this wood in our small place. We'd finish putting it away, and then we'd play that piano. I'll be eternally grateful to him.