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Carrie Underwood Reveals What ‘Sticks’ With Her About Classic Christmas Songs

Something about Christmas tunes really hits the soul differently. It’s hard to put a finger on it, perhaps it’s the subtle bells, maybe the wholesome content, maybe the smooth vibrato that you don’t really hear much anymore. Just something about it puts you in front of a crackling fire with a mug of Swiss Miss hot Coco. In her newest Christmas album, My Gift, Carrie Underwood finds that something.

It starts with familiarity. Carrie Underwood knows that every good Christmas song sounds like something you’ve heard before. Even if it’s your first time ever hearing it. “I think the great thing about traditional Christmas carols is that it’s the familiarity that’s so special,” she shared with Sounds Like Nashville. “When I think about the Christmas songs that I grew up listening to, they were very straightforward, they were very simple, and that’s what sticks with me.”

With her song “Sweet Baby Jesus,” she recounts how she knew that she found the right formula. “When we wrote ‘Sweet Baby Jesus,’ that was just a magical day,” said Carrie Underwood. “I knew I was really onto something special when I let my mom hear it and she was like, ‘Well, that’s just a Christmas song, right?’ She had no idea that we wrote it. She didn’t know that it hadn’t been sung before, and that made me feel really happy. I’m like, ‘Wow, it feels familiar to you, which is good when you think about Christmas songs.’”

Carrie Underwood on Sharing the Album with Her Son

The album consists of eleven songs, including three originals. The originals, co-written by Carrie Underwood, Brett James, and David Garcia, all have that element of Christmas magic. Other than “Sweet Baby Jesus,” originals on the album include “Let There Be Peace” and “Hallelujah,” which features John Legend.

Underwood also mentioned that she didn’t want to change the classic Christmas songs significantly. This keeps the pure familiar aspect of them. One classic staple of the song “Little Drummer Boy” comes with a child’s voice. Underwood thought what better child to use than her own? With that in mind, she brought in her son Isaiah Fisher to do the honors.

“To hear his voice, I laugh and I’m like, ‘When he’s a dude, a man, and he’s got this deep voice, I’m always going to have that moment in time captured on this album,’” Carrie Underwood shared. “I’ll make you real sad just for a second; he now pronounces his R’s. He says, ‘pa-rum-pum-pum-pum’ when he sings it now, which is very sad to me. Ultimately, you want them to pronounce R’s like ‘err’ and not ‘wuh,’ but it’s like that moment is already gone.”