Tom Mason’s third Christmas album goes down easy. The Nashville and Iowa-based singer, songwriter and guitarist assumes a relaxed, good-natured tone in 10 original songs, most of them based in old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. Newly-written and recorded though the songs are, they often sound comfortably familiar, including occasional melodic trimmings from holiday perennials.

If this had been a normal year, Mason would have toured the world, performing sea shanties with his band the Blue Buccaneers. Mason and his bandmates, believe it or not, perform their original shanties at pirate and tall ship festivals as well as conventional folk festivals. But with no gigs to play during the coronavirus pandemic, Mason completed Under a Mistletoe Sky, his third Christmas album.

The title song rocks with a loose roll and a slide guitar quote from “O Holy Night.” Seasonal pleasantries continue with “All Covered in Snow,” featuring a melodic glow and comfy flow that echo early Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

An album highlight, “Christmas Boogaloo” sends a message of brotherly love via Latin rhythm inspired by the Latin-meets-rhythm and blues boogaloo music of the ’60s. Mason channels his inner Santana for the song’s guitar solo. He models “Little Elvis, King of the Elves,” on “Jailhouse Rock,” interjecting impressions of Presley’s vocal mannerisms. And “Come on Mr. Claus” goes glam rock, a style grounded in the rock and roll pioneers.

The album ends in the contented warmth of “Christmas In Love,” a song that celebrates home, family and love with the take-it-easy flow of a slow-going trail ride through lovely countryside.