I can hardly contain my excitement! 
I was able to obtain a new, never-played, 7-1/2IPS, mint, still sealed in the original plastic bag: 50-year old Columbia Records reel to reel tape of Music of Christmas from an old employee of Columbia Records.
 
With great anticipation, like a kid at Christmas, I played the tape on the deck last night and I was floored at the high-end frequency response, even with these old damaged ears of mine, it is light-years better than the 1980's CD that was released!  It has treble! (maybe even too much high end).  As far as tape hiss: my ears are too shot from years of headphone use to hear tape hiss anymore, so I couldn't detect any, nor did my digital VU meter show anything between tracks!
   
Tape was in incredible condition: only one drop-out and only one slight reduction in volume in the left channel for 10 seconds of just one song.  "Print-thru" was not noticeable except just before "Joy to the World" came a blasting, you could hear it softly one tape revolution in advance.

If my consumer-grade (7-1/2IPS) tape sounds this great, I could only dream what Columbia could do with the original 3-track masters.

Anyhow, my mission remains to pester Columbia/Legacy and/or CCM to remaster and release the ultimate Christmas LP: Music of Christmas from Percy Faith.

A very Happy New Year to everyone!
John