December 2023 Playlist: My Winter Song To You

(Typically these playlists will be locked for paid subscribers, but since it's the holidays and all, I figured it's only right to make this one free. Happy Holidays!)

I have such a weird relationship with Christmas, but I feel like most adults say that.

I loved it as a kid and a teenager and I probably believed in Santa a little longer than I should have, but becoming an ACOD as soon as I became an adult plus years of working in customer service soured a lot of the experience for me. Sure, I still love Christmas lights and the general wintertime magic that comes with Christmas, but it's hard to get hyped when you see people being their absolute worse in what is supposed to be the season of peace and giving. (My experience as a Mall Santa "elf" could be a newsletter on its own, but I digress.)

Still, I have a soft spot for Christmas music and as soon as I realized I was a queer teenager with depression, I started incorporating the bummer Christmas songs into my holiday mix CDs much to my mom's chagrin. And like, it's not totally out of edginess when you're exhausted by holiday cheer. Christmas is kind of a little sad. Family and relationship trauma, year end reflections, the general sadness of winter, and just seeing your extended family getting a little older. Kacey Musgraves sings about it beautifully on 'Christmas Makes Me Cry' and being away from my family and friends for two years in another state during the beginning of the pandemic gave me a new love for 'I'll Be Home For Christmas.'

Christmas also somehow has inspired just some true belters about being in love and wanting your baby back around the holidays. Obviously Mariah Carey has had the market cornered with 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' for nearly 30 years, but you definitely can't count out 'Ribbons and Bows' by Kacey Musgraves or 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' by Darlene Love. Or if you're an elder emo like me, 'Yule Shoot Your Eye Out' by Fall Out Boy scratches the itch on the other side.

I also just enjoy Christmas songs that are funny. When I was a teenager, this manifested as playing the South Park Christmas album or the Colbert Report Christmas Special (which features a truly holiday appropriate version of 'What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding' that is unfortunately not on Spotify), but now it mostly comes out in Kacey Musgraves singing about toking up on Christmas to get "higher than the angel on the top of the tree," Carly Rae Jepsen lamenting about the stress of the holidays on 'It's Not Christmas Till Sombody Cries,' or Lady Gaga's early and extremely horny classic 'Christmas Tree.' Though, I think Eartha Kitt can't be counted out with 'Santa Baby.' It sneaks up on you with the humor, and not in the unintentional "no homo" way Michael Buble managed with his version a few years back.

(I honestly tried to only do one song per artist/album, but Kacey just had too many good ones on her Christmas album to pick just one.)

I decided to give myself one actually religious song between all the Christmas depression, breakups, Muppets, and Butch Walker being ho-ho-hammered and I ultimately landed on 'Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)' by Amy Grant.

Grant as an artist comes with a lot of childhood nostalgia for me because my mom played her more pop oriented albums when I was a kid in the 90s and her Christmas albums were in regular rotation during the holidays. My parents weren't particularly hardcore Christian, so I don't know why Amy Grant was in rotation in our house, but I'm glad to have at least found out that she is lovingly affirming of queer people and even hosted her lesbian niece's wedding on her farm. Which gave me little hesitation of including 'Breath of Heaven' cause that song goes so hard for no reason. It's very rare that the story of the Nativity gets told from Mary's perspective, especially being a teenage refugee being told she is pregnant with the Messiah. Grant is an evocative songwriter on top of having an insane vocal range, so no wonder she's been dubbed "the Queen of Christmas Music."

Finally, if you're a Hadestown fan like me, you know why I included that version of 'Winter Song' that opens the playlist. It makes me weep every time I hear it, though probably not as much as I did when Reeve Carney got to "take [Eva Noblezada] home" during his final curtain call as Orpheus this year.

So wherever you are, I hope you have a happy holiday season no matter what you celebrate. This is my winter song to you.

1.) 'Winter Song' - Hadestown Original Broadway Cast
2.) 'Thank God It's Christmas' - Queen
3.) 'Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24' - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
4.) 'Yule Shoot Your Eye Out' - Fall Out Boy
5.) 'It's Not Christmas Until Somebody Cries' - Carly Rae Jepsen
6.) 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' - Mariah Carey
7.) 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' - Darlene Love
8.) 'Ribbons and Bows' - Kacey Musgraves
9.) 'Santa Tell Me' - Ariana Grande
10.) 'Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays' - NSYNC
11.) 'Carol of the Bells' - Lindsey Sterling
12.) 'Santa Baby' - Eartha Kitt
13.) 'Christmas Tree' - Lady Gaga
14.) 'Christmas Wrapping' - The Waitresses
15.) 'A Willie Nice Christmas' - Kacey Musgraves and Willie Nelson
16.) 'The Jingle Bell Rock' - Butch Walker
17.) 'Where The River Meets The Sea' - From Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas
18.) 'Thankful Heart' - From The Muppet Christmas Carol
19.) 'Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)' - Amy Grant
20.) 'Fairytale of New York' - The Pogues and Kristy MacColl
21.) 'Christmas Without You' - Trixie Mattel
22.) 'Hard Candy Christmas' - Dolly Parton
23.) 'Christmas Makes Me Cry' - Kacey Musgraves
24.) 'I'll Be Home for Christmas' - Cam
25.) 'Spidey-Bells (A Hero's Lament)' - Chris Pine

Songs included in the YouTube playlist that weren't on Spotify:
-'Xmas Cake' - Rilo Kiley
-'December Will Be Magic Again' - Kate Bush
-'What's So Funny ('Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?)' - Stephen Colbert, Elvis Costello, Feist, John Legend, and Toby Keith
-'Xmas In April' - Butch Walker
-'Santa'Self (Fuck Your Christmas Party)' - Butch Walker