Grown-Up Christmas List
Christmas song written and composed by David Foster, Linda Thompson-Jenner and Amy Grant, originally recorded by David Foster and Natalie Cole and released in 1989
"Grown-Up Christmas List" (sometimes titled "My Grown-Up Christmas List") is a Christmas song written by David Foster (music) and Linda Thompson-Jenner (lyrics). Originally written by Foster for the 1989 CBC Christmas program A David Foster Christmas Card, the song was recorded as a duet with David Foster and Natalie Cole. In 1990, a Cole-only version of the song appeared on David Foster's River of Love album. The song was planned to be released as a single, but only a very small number of copies were sold in a limited region. In 1992, Amy Grant recorded the first cover version of the song for her second Christmas album Home for Christmas. This was the beginning of a series of cover versions by many artists, and it has become a standard Christmas song in the 21st century.
Amy Grant version
Lyric addition
Amy Grant wrote an additional verse she sings as the song's second:
As children we believe
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely wrapped beneath the tree
But Heaven only knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal a hurting human soul
In a 2023 SiriusXM radio special for The Message channel, Grant stated she asked Foster for approval to add the lyric, and Foster was not only impressed, he offered to add Grant to the songwriting credits for the song, which she declined.
Since then, some artists have chosen to perform the song with Grant's additional lyric and some have not.
Music video
A&M Records released a music video for Grant's recording of the song, featuring an appearance by Grant's son, Matthew Chapman. The song's edited version was used in the video.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Grown-Up Christmas List” is christmas song written and composed by David Foster, Linda Thompson-Jenner and Amy Grant, originally recorded by David Foster and Natalie Cole and released in 1989. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Grown-Up, Christmas and List, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “christmas song written and composed by David Foster, Linda Thompson-Jenner and Amy Grant, originally recorded by David Foster and Natalie Cole and released in 1989” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5611701. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1990, 1992 and 2023.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grown-Up Christmas List” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.