I’m sure I share a real love for the festive season with many of you reading this. After all, it is a blog all about Christmas music, albeit not the usual array of tracks that you’ll hear in every store, on every radio station and on every advert, every year. So, I know I can express my true fanatical Christmas love here without shame or judgment. Actually, I have no shame anyway. Anyone who has ever met me quickly learns the extent of my devotion, usually when they spy the Christmas bauble tattoo on my left arm and question whether it’s real or not.

When I was at school, I could hold a decent tune with my singing voice and was part of a school band, in addition to singing in talent shows and school performances. One Christmas, I decided to sing loud and clear to spread some festive cheer. I found a chintzy instrumental of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and belted my teenage heart out in the school auditorium. I was nervous and panicking before heading out on ‘stage’ and facing the whole school staring back at me. Let me jump ahead to say there’s no tragic story here. The students applauded and grinned. I smiled and danced with a friend on stage during an instrumental break. I received warm words of encouragement and enjoyment from friends and teachers. It was a lovely memory that I hold onto dearly.

When I started dating my now-wife, it was Christmas and I remember listening to Bublé, of course, whilst traveling home from a date and texting my best friend in excitement at my growing love for her. Bublé’s version of “Have Yourself” was one of those that swept me up in warm, fuzzy feels and sent my joy spiraling into the stratosphere. His classic tones reminded me of all that is merry and bright in my life, which included my new partner. Eventually, I would marry her and make her put up with me buying mince pies in October.

Basically, this song is as ubiquitous and as Christmassy to me as Santa Claus, decorating trees and watching a little girl tell us that a bell ringing means an angel gets its wings. So, now we come to Sufjan Stevens’ version of this classic.

“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is one of those ever-present songs that has been covered by everyone from Bing to Ella to Kermit the Frog to John Legend to Phoebe Bridgers to The Beths. It originally comes from the musical Meet Me In St Louis and began life as a depressing take on the struggles of a year and the worry over the year ahead. It retains some of this in its original delivery and an odd line such as “Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow.”

Sufjan delves into the core of the original but does so by tearing out parts and grafting on new components, almost like a mad scientist experimenting on a human-turned-android. We begin with synthetic drum sounds that drop into a flurry of claps, woodwinds, shimmers, and bells. It falls away just in time for a double-layered, soft as silk, male/female sing-song. The music begins to build again, slowly adding more beats, kicks, and instruments, punctuated by odd computer sounds, piano runs, and angelic choir-like ‘aahs.’

It sums up Sufjan’s attitude towards Christmas with all of these treat-filled records. Take the essence of the season and twist it precisely into something unconventional and wonderful. Here, he perfectly captures the heart of a song that is quintessentially about sadness, loneliness, and fear, which has been suffused with a joy and spirit that has propelled it through the ages. A minute and a half before the end, he begins whirring through electronic noises, as if tiny robotic animals are awakening from a winter slumber, before dropping back to an extremely old-fashioned simple piano, guitar, and bells. Then, it all comes together for a triumphant finale in the last forty seconds.

At Christmas, we take the old, we take the sad, we take the joy, we take the new; we fuse them together in a myriad of ways across the globe, millions of takes on the same celebration. Sufjan brings this and more with his version of “Have Yourself,” leaving us in a true daze and state of wonderment at the complexity of the holiday season. It leaves me thinking about my school days, dating my wife and a million other memories of this song, all bundled together and pushing me forward to the next December and the next year of sadness, joy, excitement, and memories.