I asked my good friend Ethel (Gabriel), the legendary RCA Records producer, about this in one of our conversations. She was very close to Chet both professionally and personally. She worked with him, Steve Sholes and Dan Maddox to establish the legendary Nashville Sound Studio (now a National Historical site) in 1956. Anyway, Ethel said Chet simply wanted to improve on the tracks by remixing them and adding more guitar. Ethel just passed away last year, click here for my post when I publicly announced it for the first time.

Interesting. I'm surprised he was so dissatisfied with the original recordings. Christmas with Chet Atkins is nothing short of a masterpiece, in my humble opinion.

I agree; but for whatever reason, Chet was determined to try and improve upon the recordings. 

I listened to Christmas with Chet Atkins last night, I really had know idea that it was that good , the album cover was the alternative cover with Chet playing guitar , I really enjoyed his version of silver bells , thanks for making aware of this wonderful album, Merry Christmas everyone.

If you peruse my Top 500, Joe, I'm sure you'll discover a lot Christmas music that you weren't aware of: Click here.