Like a favorite holiday record, Thursday night's "Sounds of the Season" Lancaster Symphony Orchestra concert at Franklin & Marshall College's Barshinger Center was like a visit from a long-absent friend, loaded with music you know but may not have heard live.

It's a concert for the whole family, "one of the few things that everyone can do together," as conductor Stephen Gunzenhauser said.

The first half (side?) was devoted to selections from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" — basically, the familiar suite drawn from the ballet, plus "Waltz of the Snowflakes" and capable narration by Paul Thibault.

As the story of Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, the Mouse King and the journey to the Land of the Sweets unfolded, the orchestra played to magical effect. Tchaikovsky captures a mood of fantasy without frivolity or triviality — no mean feat.

The women of the Lancaster Symphony Chorus sang wordlessly during the "Waltz of the Snowflakes," a building storm of swirling strings.

The orchestra captured just the right moods for the various dances: vigor for the "Russian Dance," smoky mystery for the "Arabian Dance," perkiness for the "Chinese Dance."

Chorusmaster William Wright also stood in on electronic keyboards — celesta in "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and, later on, harpsichord in Henry Mancini's "Carol for Another Christmas."

The Mancini works formed the bulk of the second half of the program, devoted to arrangements of Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs.

Gunzenhauser pointed out that the carol arrangements had been locked up in a storage area and remained unperformed since Mancini's death in 1994, and that this was their first live performance outside of California.

Adding spice to the punch was the addition of a drum kit to the percussion section. Tom Blanchard, Dennis Markley and Zachary Crystal anchored the Mancini arrangements, which ranged from cool pop "Jingle Bells/Sleigh Ride" and "Frosty the Snowman/Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to a more classical feeling in "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/Deck the Halls/Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and especially "Christmas Rhapsody," a sequence of eight or so familiar carols. The Lancaster Symphony Chorus sang in some of the arrangements; others were instrumental.

Jeff Tyzik's "Chanukah Suite" and Lucas Richman's "Hanukkah Festival Overture," both works from 1994, drew diverging results from similar material, Tyzik's seeming brasher, Richman's somehow smoother. Doris Hall-Gulati contributed bold klezmer clarinet to the latter piece. Richman also provided the arrangements for the Christmas singalong that concluded the piece.

So ... there were many carols, but a single lesson, repeated in various ways throughout the evening: "It's for all of us to celebrate our feeling of living together, being together, of being good neighbors," Gunzenhauser said.

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"Sounds of the Season" repeats at 7:30 tonight and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Barshinger Center. For tickets, call 358-4TKT or 291-4220, or visit on the Web at tdf.fandm.edu/boxoffice. For information, visit www.lancastersymphony.org.