WHEELING — B.C. Taylor, son of late musician and Wheeling Hall of Famer B.E. Taylor, will be bringing the Christmas music magic back to Wheeling in the groups first performance in the area since 2019.

Taylor said he and the band, composed of several longtime collaborators and friends of his father, received an influx of requests from those in the Wheeling area for the iconic Christmas show to return. Most of the group have been playing together for decades in an event inspired by B.E. Taylor’s song “Feel the Love of Christmas.”

Taylor, a Wheeling native and alum of Wheeling Park High School, said he thought performing at the Chambers Performing Arts Center Theatre would be a good way to bring the show back to town.

“Wheeling is home. The show started there, I grew up in Wheeling, so of course we are all very very very excited to be coming back,” he said. “It’s just a special feeling to be able to carry on that type of tradition, the love and the joy and what the show represents. The fact that there were enough people that still want to celebrate that with us is wonderful.”

Taylor said performing with his dad growing up was a unique and crucial part of his upbringing, and their relationship. Performing the iconic Christmas tunes with the band helps him feel closer to his dad, he said.

“When I’m behind the drumset and I’m playing songs that someone else is singing I can close my eyes and remember exactly how it was when he was there,” Taylor said. “I can still feel that and I can recreate that in my mind as I’m playing and that alone for me is worth it because it’s like I’m spending time with dad.”

While his father left shoes too big to possibly fill musically, Taylor said he is following B.E. Taylor’s advice and making the performance his own.

“It’s an impossible feat to try to come in and be the talent that he was. But he would always say whether it was to me or to other players, ‘be the best version of you that you can be,’ so I’m bringing that to the show,” he said.

The group aims to maintain the original feel of B.E.’s show. The classics, “O Holy Night,” “Joy To The World” and “Little Drummer Boy,” among others, will still be a part of the show, Taylor said.

However there will also be some new additions, like several songs from his cousin, Bailey Taylor. Taylor said he thinks this will be a fun change-up for those who have seen the shows in the past.

“We all felt this responsibility to bring really joyful uplifting positive music. If we’re gonna write Christmas music we want it to be that because of the responsibility we have to the shows,” he said. “So we will be performing a couple of her songs that fit perfectly into the show, fit perfectly into the message.”

Taylor is thinking of the show as almost a family reunion, and said he hopes attendees of the concert walk away with a little more joy and Christmas spirit, which is the goal of the performance.

“It’s a time to kind of push pause on the worries of life and the stresses and just come together and celebrate and laugh and maybe cry but let it be joyful tears or let it be a release to where you leave a little bit lighter,” he said. “The whole goal is just to make it as uplifting and positive as we can possibly make it.”

The performance in Wheeling will be on Sunday at the J.B. Chambers Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at feeltheloveofchristmas.com.