If you believe the Hallmark Channel, it's never NOT Christmas.

For the rest of us, the holiday season is, well, seasonal. It comes once a year, which is a big reason it's special. Part of that magic, as December draws nigh, will come from The Mavericks, the incredible and loosely defined Americana band whose ear-pleasing stir-fry includes '50s pop, honky tonk, Tex-Mex and rockabilly — all nuanced by the (insert your favorite synonym for "celestial" here) voice of Raul Malo. The Mavs have just released their first holiday album, "Hey! Merry Christmas!" which includes eight original songs as well as distinct arrangements of the classics "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and, rendered in waltz time, "Happy Holiday."

Even more Santa-y, the Mavs appear Friday at the Garde Arts Center as part of a brief "Hey! Merry Christmas!" tour. And while the band has done Christmas shows in the past, this will be the first featuring their own holiday material. The setlist will be garnished by timeless seasonal faves possibly including "Marshmallow World, "I'll be Home for Christmas," "Feliz Navidad" and "Blue Christmas," and longtime fans should also be ready for some secular selections from the Mavericks catalog. 

But going back to that "once a year" thing: The reality of the music business is that making an album — particularly for a band as sonically sophisticated as The Mavericks — requires plenty of advance planning. And given that The Mavericks are a joyously busy live act that typically plays 120 or more dates annually, the "Hey! Merry Christmas!" process started 18 months ago.

Malo, the group's songwriter, delivered holiday-themed material as he had time to write it, and the whole outfit — including guitarist Eddie Perez, drummer Paul Deakin and keyboardist Jerry Dale McFadden — arranged and recorded at random points on the road.

"You have to be grown-ups and act professional about it," laughs Perez, on the phone last week from his home in Nashville. "If you're making a Christmas album, you want to feel in the mood, though that's not always the reality. In order to get it all ready and done, you're sometimes recording something that's really the last thing you want to do. Maybe you have a few days here in the middle of a tour and then a few days later on. I mean, Raul was writing Christmas music in the spring, and we'd end up recording in Arizona in July or whatever."

New Christmas classics?

Approaching the task with his usual stylistic curiosity, Malo has delivered a sprawling variety of tunes. For example, the title cut and "Christmas Time (is Coming Round Again)" sound like Jerry Lee Lewis accompanying a mall Santa, while "Santa Does" rocks in Brian Wilson fashion. "I Have Wanted You (for Christmas)" is earnest, singalong barroom pop, and "Christmas for Me is You" is yearning, closing-time R&B balladry. And "Santa Wants to Take You for a Ride" is a slinky, wink-wink song of seduction full of double entendres.

"A lot of Mavericks albums sound fresh and spontaneous because that's how we recorded them," Perez explains. "There's a lot of spontaneous creativity in this band, and it's always a goal to make the studio albums capture that quality. And this time, we thought that, if we can't write and record the way we usually do, let's do it as professionally as possible. Let's make a joyous Christmas album that also sounds like a Mavericks album. And we also thought it would be fun if we ended up introducing some new songs into the Christmas classics lineup. And maybe that will happen."

The band's professionalism worked. However difficult the logistics might have been, the whole album is a delightful romp that sounds like it was recorded in the soundproofed reindeer barn at the North Pole with engineering help from Bob Cratchit and nonstop shots of eggnog and candy cane martinis. In testament, the first video from the album, showing the band playing the title song live in the studio, looks and sounds like it was part of the greatest Christmas party ever.

"Well, it IS about Christmas, after all," says Perez of the video shoot. "And we did make a party out of it. We're fortunate to have so many friends that wanted to help out, so we got them all in the studio and got the place looking festive. My friend Christine just really loves Christmas and offered all these ornaments and decorations she has; she joked we'd need a semi to load it all up from her place.

"When you think about it, Christmas has an intimate, homegrown energy. And that's what we went for. It was amazing because here's a band that's been around for 30 years and played all over the world — and all of a sudden that video shoot took us back to garage band days, like it was our first time playing, and we were doing Christmas music for friends and family."

In addition to the holiday vibe, it's also true that the Mavericks have been on a creative and fresh roll for the last six years. The group, which formed in 1989, went on an extended break from 2004 to 2013 and, after getting back together, Perez says there has been a sustaining commitment.

"We've recorded five albums in six years, and it's been sort of amazing because the output has been profound and prolific, almost like this time we're not going to take for granted what we have," Perez says. "There's a profound brotherhood in this band. Next to my family at home, The Mavericks are my family, and all of us get that and are grateful for it."

All for one and one for all

To protect that quality in the face of a rapidly and significantly changing music industry, The Mavericks also formed their own label, Mono Mundo Recordings.

"For a band like us this deep into our existence, we have to think about what qualities we have and how we fit into the picture," Perez says. "We'll never have that moment where we're the new big thing again. That's for younger artists, and today more than ever things move so fast and people have incredibly short attention spans. Going forward, will you still have artists like Sintara or Tony Bennett who still chart into their 80s? Is that even possible now?"

As musically creative and energetic as The Mavericks are — their albums are always bursting with new ideas and exploration — they know they can take those stylistic chances because of the incredible power of their live concert experiences. And the band has formulated through Mono Mundo a blueprint to utilize their strengths.

"Our bread and butter is our live shows," Perez says. "We know we can go out and entertain, and we've built a base of fans that enjoy coming to see us play. Some artists tour to support albums. For us, we record albums, and they lend support to the tours. And once we realized that, it made sense for the four of us to sit down and take control of these elements. Why slice off a percentage to give to a promoter or label or management? It's like cutting off your pinkie finger and still trying to play the guitar. Or you put your heart and soul into an album for a label, and that's fine — but the label maybe has to pay attention to 20 artists on the roster who've also just put their hearts and souls into projects."

Perez says it took a lot of business meetings between Malo, Deacon, McFadden and himself to figure it all out, and there was indeed a learning curve. But, he laughs, "We figured it out. We agreed that, if we don't know how this business works by now, we should be doing something else."

That ongoing and growing commitment is what helps make "Hey! Merry Christmas!" a vital step in that Perez calls "The Mavericks' ongoing narrative. These projects and these shows — and the fans, of course — renew our energy. It regenerates us and allows us to go on to the next thing. And right now? The next thing is Christmas!"

SIDEBAR

Five bits of Mavericks minutiae

1. Though not remotely representative of the "mainstream country" category in which they're often lumped, the Mavericks have won numerous Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards as well as a Best Country Performance Grammy for the song "Here Comes the Rain."

2. Other Mavericks tunes you might not know you know but will recognize when you hear them are "All You Ever Do is Bring Me Down," "Brand New Day," "Dance the Night Away," and "The Air That I Breathe." 

3. Mavs vocalist/songwriter Raul Malo once described to The Day why he enjoyed modern technology: "It's pretty great that (his then-11-year-old) can find a video on YouTube of Louis Armstrong playing 'La Vie en Rose' and then ask for trumpet lessons. (Which it true.) New generations now have access to all sorts of music and musicians that we never had."

4. Mavs guitarist Eddie Perez grew up in L.A. learning licks from heroes like AC/DC and Van Halen. His father turned him on to Dwight Yoakam's "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc" album and spun the youngster's head in a new direction.

5. Years later, during the Mavericks' hiatus, Perez spent a few years in Yoakan's touring band. Perez says, "Dwight was always lovely and generous to me and he taught me to appreciate things about about myself that I'd never recognized."

If you go

Who: The Mavericks

What: The "Hey! Merry Christmas!" tour

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Where: Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London

How much: $38-$58

For more information: (860) 444-7373, gardearts.org, themavericksband.com