About That Song: Holiday Special 2025!
About That Song #94
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
In addition to penning the About That Song series, I’m part holiday elf. I have a deep love for holiday music. Some musicians run away from December, and holiday music, while I … I drive my sleigh full on into a snow pile of seasonal singing opportunities. For this mid-December 94th edition of ATS, I reached out to a few friends who also carry a bit of the jingle-jangle in their musical souls with a few questions. (I even made a playlist of some of their answers!)
Sarah: Hi friends! Do you have a tried-and-true holiday song? A song you can play that never fails to help you find the spirit? Tell us About That Song!
Nate Dungan, Trailer Trash: “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.” This standard has been reimagined by so many artists down through the years in different styles and genres, and it always comes back for new generations. It checks all the boxes: the melody, chord structure, and iconic imagery are all perfect and have become a part of our Christmas culture. I love hearing my band play it. We open our Trashy Little Xmas Show with it, and it always gets the party started!
Leslie Vincent: I absolutely love “Grown-Up Christmas List” by Amy Grant. Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but I grew up with it, and I love it even more now that I’m grown.
Leslie Vincent. Photo credit: Margherita Andreani.
Mother Banjo / Ellen Stanley: George Winston's “Thanksgiving,” which opens up his album December. Growing up my family used to listen to that cassette every year driving from New Haven to Philadelphia on Christmas Day to see the grandparents. Now we listen to it on Christmas morning as we open our presents and eat cinnamon rolls.
Debbie Briggs: Annually, I have had the pleasure of hosting a Christmas Show with Debbie Briggs Vintage Jazz. Each year I try to change the show up in some way, but there are two songs I just love to do and will always be part of the tradition. You might think it’s one of the pretty ones like “The Christmas Song” (which I adore singing, and indeed love singing the many other “pretty ballad songs”), but honestly, it's the silly ones that I most cherish. I love how they put me in touch with my inner child. I have a really fun kinda calypso-feeling version of “Hippopotamus for Christmas,” and a sing-along version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and these two are likely the ones I have the most fun with! It takes me back to dancing around the living room with siblings and preparing decorations for the house, and I just love these childhood classics!!
Helene Cronin: I will always love “O Holy Night.” It’s a beautiful combination of words and melody. The melody gets to me just as much as the lyric. It leans more classical than my current style of music-listening, but maybe that’s why it’s a forever classic. I don’t get tired of hearing it. And sometimes it makes me a little teary-eyed.
Helene Cronin. Photo credit: Brooke Stevens Photography.
Benjamin Cartel: I really love “Ocho Kandelikas” (“Eight Little Candles”), a Ladino language song celebrating Hanukkah, written by the Jewish-American composer Flory Jagoda in 1983. You could say it really lights my Menorah. I also love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Father Christmas by The Kinks as well.
Molly Maher: “Let Your Love Flow”
Sarah: Have you ever written a holiday song? If so, can you tell us about that song?
Ben Cook-Feltz: Not really! I revere Christmas music too much, so any time I’ve set out to write a holiday song, it always feels really heavy-handed, or tries to say something that has already been said, many, many times, much more effectively. Anything I’ve written has been with tongue firmly in cheek, which is fine, but I would never consider them actual holiday songs. Or there are songs that are set at Christmas time (including something I just wrote this month!), but that doesn’t count either. I’m sure it will happen someday, but I’m not going to force it!
Ben Cook-Feltz. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Amanda B. Perry: I’ve written 3 holiday songs, and co-wrote one too! Of my songs, one is sad, one is fun and festive, and one is nostalgic ... I’ll go with the nostalgic one, which is also my first one!! Holidays, I get to close my eyes and travel back in time to my childhood holidays and be in that warm glow for those 3 minutes! Places I don't visit anymore, faces I no longer see, and traditions held strong, all come back every time I sing this one! Maybe I should record it!!
Dan Gaarder: Several. My favorite is “Christmas in the City,” written about the Powderhorn Park area where I grew up. The feel of the neighborhood at Christmas and the warmth of our house on tree-decorating day.
Helene Cronin: I wrote a Christmas EP, sort of accidentally, one song at a time. When I realized I had 6 Christmas songs, of course, I had to go into the studio again! The record is called Beautiful December. The song that’s the most personal to me is “The Bells of St. Thomas.” It came out of a prompt group I was in, and I was the one who sent the prompt “church bells” after spending Thanksgiving in Orange Beach, AL. Across a field from the house was St. Thomas by the Sea, a Catholic church, and every hour the bells rang, annoying me, until I decided to use them for a prompt!
As I thought of the bells and Christmas coming, I began to write from some emotional memories. Parents (now gone), holiday dinners, family gatherings, stringing lights on the eaves, throwing tinsel on a real tree—all of this came flooding back. When I recorded my vocals on these songs, this is the one that broke me down in the studio. It took multiple tries to get through it.
One “songwriter-y” note: The third verse stumped me for a while. I wanted a universal BIG idea to conclude the song. The word “doubt” kept crossing my mind. I kept pushing it away, thinking a Christmas song is about faith and joy and good stuff like that! Then I remembered that in the Bible the apostle Thomas is known as “doubting Thomas” and all of a sudden I realized why the word was making itself known! I ended the song by saying “To believers and seekers, and doubters like me it’s a come-one, come-all benediction, when the bells of St. Thomas are ringing.” And that is the whole point of Christmas to me. All are welcome.
Nate Dungan, Trailer Trash: I’ve been lucky enough to have written a few Christmas tunes that made it into the Trashy Little Xmas Show. Most recently, I came up with one called “One Holiday At A Time.” Some others are “Crazy For Christmas,” “Mistletoe,” and “The Ugly Christmas Sweater Polka.” I co-wrote a rocker with the late, great Tom Mason called “Gift Wrapped Girl,” which always goes over great. I’ve also written parody lyrics for pop hits to make them into Christmas songs, like “I’ve Shopped Everywhere” (to the tune of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere”).
Sarah: Over the last decade, I’ve had friends turn me on to holiday songs that have been around FOREVER, but somehow have escaped my merry listening. (Probably because I’ve been too busy playing Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas record on repeat since 1994). Have you had any recent holiday song “discoveries”?
Amanda B. Perry: Ha! Yes!! That’s me with Celine Dion's album too!! But have you ever heard “Snowman” by Sia?? It’s pretty great! My niece asked me to play it a couple of years ago, and it stuck!
Amanda B. Perry. Photo credit: Sara Kristine.
Dan Gaarder: It’s melancholy but “Christmas Eve Can Kill You” by the Everly Brothers is a favorite and “Old Toy Trains” by Roger Miller is lovely (both recommended to me by Nate!).
Ben Cook-Feltz: Norah Jones released a wonderful Christmas album a few years ago. “It’s Only Christmas Once A Year” is a beautiful, bittersweet post-pandemic song about missing all her loved ones but keeping a brave and happy face because it’s Christmas. Stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. And being December, I had actual snowy tracks to stop in, so I have photo evidence of it!
Leslie Vincent: My friend Emily got me into “Man With the Bag” by Kay Starr, and it should definitely be a more popular Christmas song!
Molly Maher: “Christmas at The Airport” by Nick Lowe has vintage vibes for a newer song. And “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” done by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, swings while sharing a powerful message of love.
Benjamin Cartel: Yes, “Ocho Kandelikas” was that song for me. My Uncle Frank introduced it to me a few years ago. It’s NOT new—it’s been around for 40 years, but it was new to me. I was like, “WOW, Hanukkah just got a lot more fun” after hearing it. (Hanukkah was already fun, though.) “Ocho Kandelikas” is the kind of song whether you celebrate Hanukkah or not, you’ll just want to have it in your life because it’s so simple, catchy, and fun to sing.
Mother Banjo / Ellen Stanley: Melissa Carper’s new holiday album A Very Carper Christmas is a delightful collection of country originals about family, food, and sweet traditions. One of my perennial favorite instrumental albums is Evergreen by Alison Brown Quartet, with really fun, playful takes and mashups of familiar holiday tunes—a little bit jazzy but with banjo! Other songs that get me every time: The Nields’ “Christmas Carol,” Vienna Teng’s “The Athiest’s Christmas Carol,” Heather Maloney’s “Sing a Christmas Song Anyway” and Natalie MacMaster & Alison Krauss’s “Get Me Through December.”
Mother Banjo. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
As a little stocking stuffer, I’ve made us all a little holiday playlist. Listen here, and stay tuned for a super-sized year-end About That Song special edition on December 31!
Yours in song,
Sarah
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
