Fly, Santa, Fly! Eagles Jason Kelce, Jordan Mailata, and Lane Johnson to release ‘A Philly Special Christmas’ album.

The Eagles are putting out a Christmas record.

No, not the band the Eagles. The undefeated, 6-0, E-A-G-L-E-S Philadelphia Eagles.

In December, Vera Y Records will release A Philly Special Christmas, a seven-song album that showcases the vocal talents of Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce and his offensive tackle teammates Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata.

The album is produced by Charlie Hall of The War On Drugs and executive produced by Connor Barwin, the former Eagles linebacker and current executive whose Make The World Better concerts have been headlined by Philly acts like Kurt Vile and Japanese Breakfast.

The Vera Y label combines the names of Barwin’s daughter Vera and Kelce’s daughter Wyatt.

The first single is a Kelce-Johnson-Mailata version of Darlene Love’s 1963 Phil Spector-produced classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” featuring 98-year-old wonder Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra on saxophone. It comes out on Black Friday, Nov. 25 .

The album, which includes a dramatic recitation of “The Night Before Christmas” by Eagles radio announcer Merrill Reese, accompanied by Zach Miller of Dr. Dog on piano, will be released in its entirety on green vinyl, and all digital services on Dec. 23. Starting in late November the vinyl will be available for preorder at phillyspecialchrtismas.com.

Proceeds will benefit Philadelphia’s Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, helping fund a toy drive to fulfill holiday wish lists of children who have experienced trauma early in their lives, Barwin said.

The excellently titled A Philly Special Christmas takes its name, of course, from the iconic trick play that resulted in quarterback Nick Foles catching a touchdown pass in Super Bowl LII in 2018. It also nods to A Very Special Christmas, the holiday compilation album series that’s raised $100 million since 1987.

The cover of the A Philly Special Christmas album, recorded during the off season this year and completed in July before the start of Eagles training camp, was created with the permission of the estate of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.

It tweaks the cover concept of Vince Guaraldi Trio’s 1965 album A Charlie Brown Christmas. A new drawing by Hannah Westerman puts Johnson, Mailata, and Kelce at the foot of the tree in the space formerly occupied by Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Linus.

The album grew out of locker room talk among music lovers on the close-knit Eagles offensive line.

Kelce has appeared on Dan Reed’s show on WXPN-FM (88.5), singing Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up” and his own “Homes Change.” Johnson was caught on camera in 2020 bustin’ a move to Carl Carlton’s 1981 hit “She’s A Bad Mama Jama.”

And Mailata — the 6-foot-8, 360-pound Australian former rugby player who is the largest Eagle — has made his musical talent apparent this year.

In March, he competed for three weeks on Fox TV’s The Masked Singer, where he sang MKTO’s “Classic,” Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect,” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” In July, Mailata opened for Ne-Yo at the Dell Music Center, singing Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie.”

After last season, Barwin said, “Kelce and Lane were like, ‘We should make a Christmas record. One of them said it in front of me, and I was like, ‘Well, let’s do it.’”

The next step was to contact Hall, The War on Drugs drummer and leader of the indie rock male chorus The Silver Ages, who sing backup on A Philly Special Christmas.

» READ MORE: What’s next for Japanese Breakfast? First, a Philly benefit with the Eagles’ Connor Barwin.

“Jason and Connor called and asked, ‘How do we do this?’” said Hall, speaking last week from San Diego.

Hall got together with the o-linemen, passing guitars, and exchanging ideas over beers by a fire pit at Barwin’s house in Fishtown.

“I first wanted to suss out what they were after. Was this a goof, or was it a sincere thing?” said Hall, who will release his first solo album, the all-instrumental Invisible Ink, in early 2023. “And I saw right away that it’s truly sincere. They just wanted to make something that’s a love letter to Philly.”

“Charlie wanted to talk to the guys about what they think and feel about Christmas and what songs they like,” Barwin said. “And from that moment, it was like: Let’s make this thing really good. Let’s make it fun, but also be a serious project that’s something the guys can really be proud of.”

Philly Special accomplishes that with fresh versions of mid-20th century R&B Christmas classics, with a “White Christmas” modeled on The Drifters’ 1956 version heard in Home Alone, and a “Merry Christmas, Baby” that features Philly vocalist Lady Alma.

Kelce’s outsized personality shines — he hams it up in a bonus track with Philly Boy Roy, the comic caricature created by Harleysville native and indie rock drummer Jon Wurster.

Johnson leads the way on Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.” “Oh my God,” exclaimed Hall, “That comes from a real place.” And the scene stealer is Mailata, who shows off a falsetto in “White Christmas” and delivers Otis Redding runs on “Merry Christmas, Baby,” that were “totally off the cuff,” Hall added.

A Philly Special Christmas was recorded at Rittenhouse Sound Works and Silent Partner studios in Germantown, and at Rob Hyman of the Hooters’ Elm Street Studios in Conshohocken, where Hyman played organ and accordion, and Eric Bazilian mandola on “Blue Christmas.”

“I wanted to capture all that’s special and unique about the Philly music world,” Hall said. “I called the Hooters dudes, and they were like, ‘Of course we’re game!’ Then I’m at the Sun Ra house in Germantown and Marshall’s telling me to direct him .… Talk about the thrill of a lifetime.”

Hall said Kelce, Mailata, and Johnson were “just the sweetest dudes. There’s a sense of family and togetherness. And then something I found really interesting: These guys are masters of what they do, right? But in the recording studio, they’re like: ‘Just tell me what to do.’ They’re so coachable.”

Along with Philly musicians like steel guitarist Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner, tenor sax player Nasir Dickerson, and engineer Nick Krill, Hall’s bandmates Robbie Bennett and Eliza Hardy Jones also play on A Philly Special Christmas.

“Eliza had them doing these crazy vocal warm-ups and was really helping them with the mechanics of singing,” Hall said. “And they were like, ‘Coach E! Coach E! Come back here, we need your help.’ There was just zero ego. ”

Kelce, Mailata, and Johnson are busy these days trying to get back to the Super Bowl, but Barwin doesn’t rule out the possibility of some sort of charitable performance happening this year.

“It would be like a sneak thing where we get the guys to do a song or two,” he said . “We’re working on it. But this kind of thing is really hard to pull off during the season.”

Will A Philly Special Christmas grow over the years? Potentially, Barwin said, citing rookie nose tackle Jordan Davis as another dulcet-voiced Eagle. “We’d love to get him to do a song next year. But we’re going to kind of leave it open.”