The Best of the First 100 Episodes of "The Twelve Songs of Christmas"

Our Christmas music podcast is about a lot more than Christmas music, as these highlights from the first 100 episodes show.

Recently, My Spilt Milk’s Christmas music podcast, The Twelve Songs of Christmas, posted its 100th episode. Since I’m pretty proud of some of the conversations, I took a break from new interviews to look back at highlights from the first few seasons. Originally, I figured that it would take an episode or two to revisit the moments that I wanted to put back in front of the public’s ears, but once I started, I realized the episodes would be beastly long if I stuck to that plan. Five episodes later, I’m done and ready to return to new episodes.

These excerpts underscore a core thought for me about the podcast: Christmas music just starts the conversation. Really, these are conversations about creativity and musicality. We’re talking about art and business. Christmas music folds all of these concepts into one green and red, ribbon-wrapped package, but the things we talk about apply to the artists’ lives, careers and bank accounts the other 11 months of the year as well. That’s why Twelve Songs is a year-around podcast and not just a sidecar to the holiday season. How a songwriter solves a problem will always interest me, whether it’s trying to find a new way to talk about love, how to be political and personal at the same time, or how to write a Christmas song without loading it up with clichés.

If you weren’t around for the early episodes or have yet to check the podcast out, here’s an easy way to get an idea of what has been going on in the first three years. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Twelve Songs is on all the major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Amazon/Audible, Stitcher, IHeartRadio, Pandora, and more. 

Ben Schenck of New Orleans’ Panorama Brass Band was the first guest, and he talked about how Christmas music expanded the number of gigs the band could do—an important fact for a band that makes its living on live music. This episode also includes Robert Earl Keen talking about his family’s reaction to “Merry Christmas from the Family,” The Waitresses' Chris Butler and Mars Williams talking about the creation of “Christmas Wrapping,” and PJ Morton remembering how Christmas music first tweaked him to his possible future. Pink Martini talked about the importance of their Christmas album, and folk duo Lowland Hum talk about how their faith affects their thoughts on some Christmas songs. They don’t say what you expect them to.

On this episode, Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5 talks about his relationship to his Christmas songs when a stroke prevented him from playing them at their CD release show. Americana rocker JD McPherson talks about the ingenious songwriting inspiration for the songs on his Socks (a modern Christmas classic in my books), and Magic 101.9 program director Steve Suter takes us behind the scenes on the all-Christmas radio format. New Orleans singer Debbie Davis talks about what it's like to have a Christmas show that becomes a holiday tradition, and songwriter Josh Rouse remembers Christmas music in Spain.  

It took a while, but I eventually got pop purists Hanson on the show, where Isaac Hanson talked about the process of revising Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, bluegrass singer Rhonda Vincent discussed bluegrass’ contributions to the Christmas canon, and indie rapper Mega Ran pointed out the role that A Charlie Brown Christmas played in his Christmas album. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of slowcore band Low talked about the nuts and bolts role that their Christmas (another modern Christmas classic) played in their career, and Nashville session players Martin Lynds and Jen Gunderman explained why they had spent the previous 14 Christmas seasons playing the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas nightly as The Ornaments. 

On this episode, guitarist and producer Chas Justus from Lafayette, Louisiana reveals how COVID made his collection of Cajun French versions of Chrlstmas classics—Joyeux Noel, Bon Chrismeusse—possible. Romantic pianist Jim Brickman connected his Christmas music to the music he makes the rest of the year, and retro soul artist Kelly Finnigan (who made the modern classic A Joyful Sound) discusses mining the past for new music. Christian vocal group leader Ernie Haase of Ernie Haase and Signature Sound works through mixing spiritual and secular Christmas music in their sets, and Jamie Hilsden of the Christmas punk band The Myrrhderers explains how to translate Christmas to punk. Actress and singer Amy Carlson of pop band Office Romance shows her vinyl geek side and names her favorite Christmas comps. 

This episode includes Steven Drozd of Flaming Lips on the influence of Vince Guaraldi, electro-lounge duo 11 Acorn Lane on how they recorded Esquivel-influenced arrangements in a Manhattan apartment, and guitar hero Steve Lukather on playing with Eddie Van Halen. Jazz vocalist Jacqui Naylor finds the common ground between Christmas music and arena rock, and ZE Records’ Michael Zilkha remembers the origins of the game-changing A Christmas Record. Latin ska band Mento Buru obsesses over the great Hispanic Christmas song that’s not “Feliz Navidad,” and singer Danny Boy and label exec John “JP” Payne tell the unlikely story of Death Row Records’ Christmas on Death Row. That episode, incidentally, led to a story I wrote on the subject for The New York Times. 

Since then, I’ve had George Winston, Lindsey Stirling, The Polyphonic Spree, Big Freedia, Alligator Records’ Bruce Iglauer, Dan and Claudia Zanes, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mannheim Steamroller, Bruce Cockburn, Kristin Chenoweth, Amanda Shires and more on the show. I hope you’ll dig into these conversations because I’m very proud of them.

Next week, Twelve Songs returns to regular programming with new episodes.