The world is rather neatly divided into two groups of people – those who hate Christmas with a passion and would rather be flayed alive by an invading army than sing “Joy to the World” or eat a fruit mince pie, and those who, like Canadian singer Chantal Kreviazuk (and this reviewer) for whom the season is the stuff of dreams, endless happy moments and a reassurance that life may can be cosily wonderful, after all.
It is naturally to this relatively abundant second group that Kreviazuk is pitching her Christmas album, which came in 2019, but she happily goes one step further, putting forward the deliciously enticing idea that perhaps the festive season should occupy more than a few weeks leading up to the 25 December (and yes, it’s true that retailers start months earlier than that but no one actually that’s the legit start to Christmas).
The title Christmas is a Way of Life, My Dear is the tinsel-draped giveaway, as is this quote from the artist about the album (courtesy of Global News).
“The world could use the Christmas spirit all year long,” says Chantal Kreviazuk. “The kindness, gentleness and thoughtfulness that goes with the season is so healthy. The world could benefit from living by the values that radiate during Christmas.”
It’s sentiment that infuses many a festive piece of storytelling but on Christmas is a Way of Life, My Dear Kreviazuk makes it feels like far more than just a trite thematic tie-in to a buoyant festive special.
With the album composed of a beguiling mix of old favourites such as “Winter Wonderland”, “Blue Christmas” (where the artist duets with husband Raine Maida and the crew from their combined musical outing Moon Vs Sun) and a more chilled version of “Wonderful Christmastime” (sung with son Salvador Maida) which feels delightfully, gorgeously cosy, and new songs like the title track and “I Wanna Be an Angel” and “Overthinking”, it really does feel like Kreviazuk has poured genuine heart and soul into it, something given credence by another quote from the Global News article.
“I think also on a spiritual level — I love the holidays for the food and all sorts of little parts of what Christmases are — but I think ultimately people are a little more intentional and a little woke. It’s like this unspoken thing because you give more, you share more, you take more time for things and people. The theme of the album was meant to be ‘what if it was actually something that you could keep with you all through the year.'”
It’s a highly attractive idea at the best of times but especially when in 2021 we find ourselves still fending off endless COVID-19 variants, the deadly creeping evidence of climate change and a near suffocating sense that is an incurably dark and awful place.
Christmas albums are genuinely a fleeting antidote to this sense of growing unease and anxiety but there’s something profoundly more substantial and this lastingly reassuring about Kreviazuk’s richly emotive album which feels not simply like the happiness-inducing fruit of the season but like musings on how Christmas can last well beyond December and feel like a normal part of the yearly landscape.
“Overthinking” is one song that hones in on this, distilling what really matters down to the fact that what really transforms our life is having someone special close to us; while Mariah Carey’s modern Christmas classic “All I Want For Christmas is You” beautifully captures that desperate wish for the one you love by your side at Christmas, Kreviazuk’s song goes that bit further, in common with the rest of the album’s original tracks, talking with real weight and importance why that person’s presence matters so much.
It’s emblematic of an album that has all the festive trimmings – you cannot listen to her rendition of “Silent Night” and not be deeply and humbly moved – but it gives musculature to all those warm and fuzzy feelings, giving them not just real form and shape at Christmas but also affectingly explaining why Christmas can be a model for the rest of the year.
In other words, Kreviazuk lovingly and articulately details why we have those feelings of warmth, harmony and happiness, making them feel richly alive in a way that suggests they could legitimately hang around for all 365 days of the calendar.
Quite apart from sounding exquisitely, heart-fillingly lovely and joyful, anchored by the artist’s resonantly emotive vocals and arrangements that feel warmly traditional and yet refreshingly original all at once, Christmas is a Way of Life, My Dear is that rare and wonderful thing – a Christmas album that doesn’t simply affirm the validity of feelings at the most fabulous time of the year but makes a joyous case for them sticking around for the duration, a warm wrap around of reassurance that might just make the 364 non-Christmassy that much more bearable and dare we say, festively uplifting.