Melissa Kacar

Released in 2015 as a sweet and unexpected interim EP between album cycles - about a year after My Everything and six months before Dangerous Woman  - Christmas & Chill  became one of Ariana Grande 's most beloved projects in her discography. In fact, she even called it "...my favorite body of work" on Twitter in 2019. Ariana recorded the entire project in less than a week at her home studio with her friends and frequent collaborators, including Victoria Monét, Tommy Brown, Ryan Tedder, and others. The idea for a full holiday project came after the success of "Santa Tell Me" the year prior, along with the rest of the Christmas Kisses  EP, which was a mix of originals and refreshed classics.  The opening track, aptly titled "Intro", sets the tone immediately as she sings, "Welcome to this Christmas, only comes one time a year, don't miss this...let me sneak into your speakers, listen".  While inherently festive, the EP also feels li...

Over the past thirty years, Mariah Carey has fully solidified herself as the Queen of Christmas because of her timeless renditions of holiday classics, as well as modern hits that define the season every year. Although she has made so many great albums throughout her decades long career,  Merry Christmas  is undoubtedly one of the brightest shining moments of her entire discography. It showcases a versatile range of influences, with much of this album drawing from her love of gospel and soul music, as well as pop and R&B. The entire album is so full of joy and is essential listening every year during the holiday season.  Merry Christmas  was Mariah Carey's first holiday album and her fourth overall, released at a major peak in her career in 1994. It featured covers of classic Christmas songs, as well as three of the greatest original holiday songs ever. Even though she was one of the biggest artists at that time, Merry Christmas  wasn't guaranteed to be a co...

Justin Bieber 's  Under The Mistletoe  features several original holiday songs, as well as covers of Christmas classics with a unique twist. I love the way so much of his personality and musical influences is within this music too, with blends of pop and R&B. There is also so much whimsy and joy for the season embedded into every single song. The album was inspired by his personal favorite holiday music and the artists that made them. "I just picked my favorite Christmas songs. I picked 'Silent Night,' I picked 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,' because everyone loves those songs. Those are classics," Justin told  MTV News in 2011. "And then, for songs that we wrote, we wanted to make enough new songs for people to hear new music and not just hear some classics. There's a lot of new stuff on there." This album also features several collaborations throughout, some of which were interesting creative decisions that many probably wouldn't h...

Sabrina Carpenter 's  Fruitcake is equal parts naughty and nice - two traits that she has always embodied so well in her music. Every single song on this EP is so much fun to listen to, I absolutely love it. It has been so long since there was a really great original holiday album like this, I can truly see so many of these songs becoming annual Christmas classics.  This EP is full of glittering and cheeky holiday anthems that fit really well into the rest of Sabrina's discography. It is especially akin to emails i can't send and Short n' Sweet , which are her two best albums. So much of her personality and charm is all over this music much in the same way as those two albums. Fruitcake features six songs, five of them are original holiday tracks that she wrote with her frequent collaborators; John Ryan, Steph Jones, Amy Allen , and Julien Bunetta. The closing song on the EP is called "white xmas", a beautiful rendition of the holiday classic which also inte...

✴⭑"Santa, tell me if you're really there"⭑✴ "Santa Tell Me" by Ariana Grande perfectly captures the heart of holiday the season! I love that so much of her personality and personal influences shine through in this song to create this Christmas classic. This song is such a perfect example of how great modern holiday music can be and her influence has been heard throughout so much that has been released in the past decade.  "Santa Tell Me" went on to be one of the highest streamed songs in her entire discography, surpassing over a billion streams on Spotify . As of 2024, it is the third highest streamed Christmas song on the platform too! It's very rare for there to be great original holiday music released like this, but Ari completely dominates that category in every regard. "Santa Tell Me" went on to be the defining Christmas song of the 2010's and continues to rise in popularity every single year. It quickly went on to become an ann...

"In my heart is a Christmas tree farm" "Christmas Tree Farm" was inspired by Taylor Swift 's experience growing up on an actual Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. As a fellow Pennsylvania girl, I always loved the way she was able to so beautifully capture the energy of this specific setting and the warmth she continues to hold from that time in her life. Growing up in that environment obviously sparked her lifelong love of Christmas and was able to channel all of those special times with her family into this song.  Alongside the release of the song in 2019 Taylor wrote, "I actually did grow up on a Christmas tree farm. In a gingerbread house, deep within the yummy gummy gumdrop forest. Where, funnily enough, this song is their national anthem." Taylor was able to encapsulate so much of the magic and whimsy of the season into this song.  The opening verse of the song starts off a slow piano ballad, just before it picks up into a cheery cla...