‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ Sadly, it’s Another Celebrity Christmas Album

Last December, I was enjoying the company of family and friends during my dad’s annual Ugly Sweater Christmas Party. I was sitting around chatting when I heard Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé’s rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

I made a comment about how much I love the way their voices go together, even though I’m not fond of the song itself. I wouldn’t recall this memory so specifically were it not for the fact that I heard Dean Martin’s rendition about five minutes later.

And John Legend’s version about three minutes after.

And Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan’s directly to follow.

I couldn’t help but grow astonished at how many times I was hearing the song, though no fault of my dad. His “christmas playlisy” — charmingly misspelled on purpose — is almost 23 hours long. It was simply the Spotify algorithm that was responsible for the irksome repetition.

After a quick search on Spotify, I found a minimum of 13 different covers of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” For a song as morally ambiguous as this one, I definitely wasn’t expecting so many versions of it.

Normally I would ignore the 12 other covers and simply pick the version I liked the best — except my family takes Christmas music incredibly seriously.

For the past four-or-so years my dad has sent a Christmas song to my brothers and I every day of the month from Dec. 1 until Dec. 25, even starting as early as Nov. 27. After the first year, he ran out of the Christmas songs that everyone knows and started to send us indie, punk and even RuPaul Christmas songs.

It’s not just “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” that has over 13 covers — it’s almost every Christmas classic, and the numbers are even worse than I imagined.

“Silent Night” has over 26,000 tracks on Spotify, according to FiveThirtyEight. Similar grossly-absurd statistics include “White Christmas” with over 20,000 Spotify tracks and “Jingle Bells” with over 19,000.

But this isn’t a personal attack on Christmas music. I really enjoy when celebrities release original Christmas songs and albums. Some personal favorites include Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm,” Laufey’s “The Christmas Waltz” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree.”

My issue arises when almost every celebrity I recognize, singer or not, releases a Christmas album only to have every song on it be a cover. After a while, I get really tired of hearing the same songs, even if they’re sung by different voices.

My frustration and annoyance reached an entirely new level when celebrities that should be nowhere near a recording studio begin releasing Christmas music. Take for example, the Philadelphia Eagles.

That’s right — the team with four NFL Championship titles and one Super Bowl win under their belt decided to record and release not one, but four Christmas covers in 2022. Their album is titled “A Philly Special Christmas” and contains tracks like “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” “Blue Christmas” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” featuring different Eagle’s players, primarily Jason Kelce, as the singers.

This year, a teaser was released for their second Christmas album “A Philly Special Christmas Special” with brothers Jason and Travis Kelce — a Kansas City Chiefs player — featured on “Fairytale of Philadelphia,” a parody to the Pogues’ song “Fairytale of New York.”

The good thing about this album is that proceeds benefit two Philadelphia institutions — the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The same can be said for other celebrity Christmas albums, including Justin Bieber’s “Under the Mistletoe,” which donated a portion of its profits to foundations like Pencils of Promise and Make-A-Wish Foundation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Unlike Bieber and the Eagles, some celebrities don’t donate their album’s proceeds to charities. Instead of being a form of expression or a way to spread joy, these albums seem like a cash grab, making me reluctant to listen.

That is my ultimate criticism of celebrity Christmas albums — most of their albums lack the spark that all Christmas music should have. They feel as if they were created to make money rather than for love of the season.

This year, all I want for Christmas is an album full of genuine emotion, heart and an overt fondness of the holidays.

Feature image by Amber Cerpa / The Phoenix