The 2025 Christmas releases are already taking shape, and the most interesting thread is how widely artists are interpreting the season. Sufjan Stevens returns to holiday music with a new song, Alanis Morissette gathers years of seasonal singles into her first Christmas album, and a cast of Broadway performers takes on familiar standards. Elsewhere, bluegrass, jazz, orchestral arrangements and retro pop make the annual album rush less predictable than its calendar suggests.
New material from familiar voices
Sufjan Stevens’ Worst Christmas Ever! is built as a 16-track selection from his many Christmas releases, with one new addition: “On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better).” The song marks his first new holiday recording in 15 years, as well as his first new song since recovering from Guillain-Barré syndrome. For listeners who have followed Stevens’ seasonal work, the compilation offers a single place to revisit it, while the new track gives the collection a clear reason to exist beyond curation. [Out 11/6 on Asthmatic Kitty.]
Alanis Morissette has spent several years adding new holiday songs to her catalog. Her first Christmas album, Good Weather For Immaculate Conception, brings those recordings together with fresh material and a broad guest list: Brandi Carlile, Joy Oladokun, Amythyst Kiah, Trans Voices, and Steve Martin and Martin Short, who account for two-thirds of the Only Murders In The Building trio. The preview, a bluegrass reading of “Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem” with Carlile and Martin on banjo, hints that the record won’t stick to one seasonal sound. [Out 11/6 on Epiphany Music.]
The Gilded Age isn’t a musical, but its cast has enough Broadway experience to make a holiday record a natural extension of the show’s audience appeal. Voices Of The Gilded Age: The Christmas Album pairs seasonal standards with two new songs by hitmaker Desmond Child. Its singers include Carrie Coon, Ben Ahlers, Christine Baranski, Laura Benanti, Denée Benton, Jordan Donica, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Donna Murphy, Kelli O’Hara, Taylor Richardson, Morgan Spector, Taylor Trensch, and Adrienne Warren. The project may draw on an 1880s New York drama, but the music sounds much closer to the 20th century. [Out 11/6 via Concord Theatricals.]
Jazz, crooners and seasonal pop
Niia’s Christmas With Niia looks set to favor atmosphere over novelty. The alt-R&B singer made the album with producer Spencer Zahn, and its first single reworks Paul McCartney’s often-debated “Wonderful Christmastime” as a wistful, smooth ballad. That shift gives the song a different emotional center from McCartney’s playful original, and makes this one a plausible fit for a quieter holiday playlist. The release arrives digitally before its physical edition. [Out digitally 10/30 and physically 12/4 via Candid Records.]
Ryan Peter Murphy is 24, Connecticut-born, and studying at Berklee. He describes himself as a “swooner,” or, in the phrasing used by his press materials, “Gen Z’s answer to the crooner.” His Christmas In New England makes little effort to modernize traditional pop, which gives it a direct route to listeners who prefer familiar arrangements. Songs from the record are also set to appear in this year’s Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. The title track’s animated video is the one conspicuously modern element; its imagery appears to be AI-generated. [Out now on Warner.]
Another young singer is aiming for a retro holiday sound. The artist aron! keeps his branding lowercase and calls his style “cozy pop,” but the christmas dream EP leans toward old-fashioned crooner territory. Its advance single, “Christmas Dreams,” brings a brisk big-band arrangement together with an unexpectedly relaxed vocal delivery. [Out 11/13 via Verve.]
Hilary Duff’s five-track Holiday Things EP contains three originals and two covers, with a pop sensibility that recalls the appeal of Ariana Grande’s Christmas & Chill. It starts with the title-defying “All You Want For Christmas Is Me,” a pointed opening that establishes the record’s playful tone. [Out now via Sugarmouse/Atlantic.]
Steven Page’s Steven’s Greetings revisits holiday territory more than two decades after Barenaked Ladies released Barenaked For The Holidays in 2004. Page left the band in 2009; his new album mixes original songs and standards, including some of the tracks he sang with his former bandmates. It also makes room for Hanukkah songs. The sequence moves between humor and earnestness, opening with a spirited song about making a cheese log and closing with a straight-faced “Auld Lang Syne” featuring Page’s three adult sons. [Out 11/13 via Fresh Baked Goods.]
Bluegrass, jazz standards and unexpected turns
The Infamous Stringdusters are extending a project that began with 2020’s Dust The Halls: An Acoustic Christmas Holiday! The bluegrass group’s sequel, Dust The Halls Vol. 2, puts its acoustic approach to work on a mix of hymns, standards, and original songs. [Out 11/13 via Americana Vibes.]
Kat Edmonson has been building a holiday repertoire for years: she appeared on Lyle Lovett’s Songs For The Season in 2011 and released Holiday Swingin’! (A Kat Edmonson Christmas, Vol. 1) in 2021. Her next release, Have Your Merry Christmas With Me, continues in a jazz-pop vein. The advance songs “It’s Snowing” and “That’s What I Want For Christmas” suggest the new originals will sit comfortably alongside her traditional covers. [Out 11/6 via self-release.]
Debbie Gibson’s Winterlicious D’Luxe adds six new tracks to her 2022 holiday album. The expanded edition arrives ahead of her Christmas-themed Las Vegas residency in December, and includes “Lit Up.” Its pop approach is a reminder of Gibson’s place in the lineage that led to stars such as Britney Spears. [Out now via Stargirl.]
David Benoit is revisiting music familiar from A Charlie Brown Christmas on David Benoit Conducts A Vince Guaraldi Holiday Symphony. The jazz pianist and composer recorded with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, giving Guaraldi’s material an orchestral setting. The lead single, “Christmas Time Is Here,” also features the All-American Boys Choir. It’s a substantial change in scale from the originals, though the familiar compositions remain the main attraction. [Out digitally 10/30 and physically 11/20 via Candid.]
Norah Jones and Chris Stapleton take a rootsier route on “April’s Gone,” a seasonal single Jones wrote with Leon Michels of El Michels Affair. Michels produced Jones’ 2021 holiday album I Dream Of Christmas and her 2024 release Visions. The collaboration stays within the polished, easy-listening space associated with both performers, but its rootsy feel gives it a natural place in a café playlist.
Swedish producer Johan Agebjörn and synthwave singer-songwriter Dana Jean Phoenix imagine a different kind of seasonal soundtrack on “Will You Be Home For Christmas.” The premise points toward the moody synth textures of Drive, though the finished single lands somewhere more brightly kitschy. It’s a left turn in a release slate otherwise full of standards, big bands and acoustic arrangements. [Out 11/27 via self-release.]
Together, these releases show how much room the holiday album still leaves for personal taste: a new Stevens song for longtime fans, a theatrical cast album for Broadway listeners, and a run of records that move between jazz, country, pop and synthwave. The strongest picks may depend less on the season’s usual standards than on which artists find a sound worth returning to after December.
