❄️ Soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls
Show and Tell episode on "Holidays" out now!
On this week’s episode we attempted to lean right into the festivities of the season with a Holidays themed episode. But…did we actually pick holiday songs? We start by defining what the “holiday season” even means in an attempt to answer the question. Jodi discusses “New Year’s Day,” with the thesis that it’s a song about the everyday, not necessarily the holidays. Jenn brings on the holiday melancholy with “champagne problems,” sparking a hot conversation about holiday engagements and the challenges of family gatherings during the holidays. And Maansi, naturally, shares “tis the damn season,” prompting a conversation about how we really feel about the holiday season and whether they “linger like bad perfume” for us. Are Taylor Swift holidays actually happy holidays? Listen and find out!
Here’s a look at this week’s episode:
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This week’s extra credit - brought to you by Jodi
I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS! I’m basically a Jewish Buddy the Elf. I love the brisk, chilly air, and the coats, scarves, and hats I need to wear to stay warm. I love lighting a candle and drinking hot chocolate on the couch while snow falls outside. I love the twinkling lights on homes and seeing people’s Christmas trees through their windows. I love walking down 5th Avenue to see the windows at Saks and Bergdorf Goodmans, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (ok maybe I don’t actually love that, it’s too crowded with tourists, but I love the idea of it!) I love The Nutcracker even though I never got cast in the parts I felt I deserved and even though the “dun dunna dun dun” of the party scene music still makes my mom nauseous with anxiety about Nutracker auditions twenty years later.
But notice how none of these things that I love about the holidays involve the actual holiday…! This week’s episode started with a really great question from Jenn: What do we consider to be the holidays? For me, December holidays are “the holidays,” but I don’t celebrate Christmas—so it’s not MY holiday. Hanukkah, while fun and “festive,” is a pretty casual holiday as far as Jewish holidays go (and as casual a holiday can be that’s about surviving and thriving despite an enemy faction trying to kill you. But I digress). I guess I sort of assumed everyone loved the holidays, because what’s not to love about time off from work/school, joyous music, twinkly lights, parties, and good food? But perhaps my love of the holidays comes from the fact that I don’t have the stress of family and obligation and travel like everyone else around me does.
It wasn’t until recording this episode that I realized there’s a universal melancholy and anxiety around the holidays. When we initially picked this topic, I thought it’d be an uplifting, lighthearted episode. But a song about picking up bottles after a messy party; one about turning down an engagement; and a third that notes “the holidays linger like bad perfume / you can run but only so far” made it pretty clear this was not going to be happy holiday episode.
Maybe, though, Taylor is writing about the true feelings around the holidays, instead of the manufactured, Instagram-worthy photos and expectations we have of the holidays. As Maansi shared in the clip above, Taylor’s songs examine the holidays in a very different way. They’re the A Chorus Line look at what actually happens behind-the-scenes during the holiday season, not just what we see on stage or at the parties or on the glossy Christmas cards everyone sends out with their children looking clean and polished and dressed to the nines. (Do kids ever look that clean? Literally, just for the photo.) So, too, is Taylor saying through her songs that all the holiday songs out there—White Christmas, All I Want for Christmas Is You, Jingle Bell Rock—are just a snapshot of the holiday season. The “Instagram vs reality” of songs, if you will.
What an incredibly badass move—to write holiday songs that show how difficult the holidays actually are! Turn on the radio or walk into any shopping mall or store during December and it’s all jingle bells and joy and saccharine sweet fun (except for Santa Baby, which has been cancelled now that we’re actually paying attention to lyrics and, you know, treating women with respect as a society). Just like we’re told that “Fall” is basic, we’re told that the holidays are happy. And here comes Taylor Swift, ready to turn it all upside down and expose what many people are really feeling about this time of year. It’s as if she’s identified a gap on the spectrum from Buddy the Elf to Grinch and is single-handedly aiming to fill all the levels in between with her holiday songs.
So whether you’re a Buddy the Elf like me and love the simple, uncomplicated joy of the season because it’s not your holiday; or if you’re the type that skips the family gatherings altogether because family is complicated and you’d rather spend your time off sipping Mai Tais on a beach than spiked hot chocolate in your childhood bed; or whether you’re schlepping your entire family between in-laws and airplanes in order to give your children the magical joy of family and fun this holiday season. Wherever you fall on the holiday spectrum, I hope you find something in the season that brings you joy.
Happy (or unhappy?) Holidays, from your AP Taylor Swift hosts!