There are two types of people in this world. First, there are the kind who already have all their Christmas gifts bought, wrapped and sitting under the tree. Then there are the people like me. It seems that every year I scramble at the last minute to find the perfect presents for my family, and especially for my nieces (a.k.a. the kids who have everything.) And this year is no different. I’ve spent weeks racking my brain to come up with something that will hold their attention and make them gloat to their friends that “uncle Tyler bought me this!“

Thankfully, a couple weeks ago I discovered a wonderful Disney holiday CD that makes the perfect stocking stuffer. Disney’s Princess Christmas Album is chock full of gems and surprises, and its priced affordably at under $10. If you haven’t picked up a copy (or two) for the young girls on your list, I highly recommend doing so. The album is a follow-up to The Princess Tea Party Album and, once again, lyricist Marty Panzer and composer Don Grady have teamed up to deliver an original collection of songs that young ones will want to listen to and sing over and over again.

About half of the songs on the CD are traditional Christmas tunes, with the remainder being new compositions by this dynamic song writing duo. In case you don’t know, Marty Panzer is best known for his work writing hits for Barry Manilow, and composer Don Grady is most recognized for his childhood years on The Mickey Mouse Club and Spin and Marty. Don went on to star in My Three Sons, and has spent his adult life building a very successful career composing music.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Don Grady about his musical career and his long ties to the Walt Disney Company. When I reached him in California, he had just received an unexpected telephone call from Anne Hamburger, the executive vice president of Creative Entertainment for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Anne, as you may know, is the creative force behind the recent productions Aladdin - a Musical Spectacular and Snow White - an Enchanting New Musical, both from the Disneyland Resort. It seems Anne wanted to bounce some new project ideas off Don, who is currently working on another high-profile assignment that he couldn’t divulge details of.

After several fruitless attempts to get the inside scoop on his secret project, I asked Don to tell me about the time he spent working with Walt Disney himself.

TS: Do you have any specific musical memories of your time working for Walt?
DG: The very first time I met Walt was on my audition for the Mickey Mouse Club. They had called me in to audition at the same time as another boy. Before the audition, Walt told us that only one of us could be chosen because they only had room for one more Mouseketeer. During my audition, the pianist sped up my tap number so fast that I had to go over and tell him to play a little slower. He started playing slowly and then sped up again. So I sort of danced over to him and whispered “slow it down!�? I kept looking over at Mr. Disney and he kept looking at me, and I didn’t really think the audition went well at all.

After the audition Mr. Disney and a couple others went over to the other boy and gave him a lot of praise and shook his hand. And they just waved at me and said thank you very much and walked out of the room. My mother and I were sure that the other boy got the part. But they gave it to me!

I found out many years later that Walt had set up the whole scenario. He had learned from his previous experiences with the Mouseketeers and wanted to make sure that I could handle the competition and the downside of the business. That was his way of finding out psychologically about what kind of person he was hiring.