Welcome To The Final Year of A Very Sufjan Christmas

As I write this, we stand on the precipice of what could very well be our final year of A Very Sufjan Christmas. 

When my friend Kyle Meyers and I first came up with the idea for this site back in 2018, it all started as a joke. A Sufjan Stevens Advent calendar, how novel! It was such a goofy idea, and so Sufjan. While my initial reaction was nothing more than a mere laugh, it quickly dawned on me that with 100 total songs at our disposal and 25 days on an advent calendar, we could conceivably write about every single Sufjan Christmas song over the course of four years. At that point, my reaction suddenly shifted from “that’s funny” to “we must do this.” I sprinted off to lock down usernames and a domain in our name, and the rest is history. 

That first year of the website almost felt like an exercise in finding out how Sufjan Stevens fans we knew. Over the years, we’ve sourced writers from places like /r/indieheads and /r/sufjan, as well as our personal Rolodexes of music nerd friends and random Twitter mutuals alike. In the second and third years, I ran this site by myself, sourcing 25 writers each year, editing every article, running all the social media, and keeping the Christmas spirit alive thanks to a constantly rotating crew of talented writers. 

As you would expect, many of the biggest songs within Sufjan’s Christmas oeuvre were covered in our first year. Then the remaining “most popular” songs were the next to go within the second year, and so on. We now find ourselves at the onset of the fourth year of this site, which means we are down to our final 25 songs. 

Over a four-year-long process of elimination, we now find ourselves whittled down to 25 of the weirdest, shortest, most obscure Sufjan Christmas songs. This is the island of misfit toys. The songs that have been passed over for three years. The songs that nobody wanted to write about until there was nothing left. That’s an interesting challenge — one that I’m sure will result in our most fascinating collection of write-ups yet. 

If this sounds like something that you’d be interested in participating in, please visit our writer application page here to toss your hat in the ring. Just be warned that the song you’re looking for probably isn’t there. 

On the Sufjan Front, this year our boy released a five-part two-and-a-half-hour electronic album as well as a fantastic collaborative concept album with labelmate Angelo De Augustine. He’s an unstoppable folk machine, and that’s why we love him.

Much like Mr. Steven’s discography, each year of this site has brought unique challenges and allowed us to tell different stories. I’ve run this site from three different states, and as a result, each year of a Very Sufjan Christmas feels hyper-distinct in my mind. It’s always easier to see those things in hindsight, but this project has been an exciting, tiring, inspiring tradition over the last few years, and I’m excited to finally “complete” it this year.

While I’m talking about exciting things, I’d also like to formally welcome Bethany Clancy and Wes Muilenburg to the Sufjan Christmas team. Bethany Clancy is a writer from Buffalo whose work you can find all over the music blog Unsigned Spotlight. Wes Muilenburg is a Minneapolis-based writer, primarily contributing to Ear Coffee, the blog and podcast that they co-founded in 2017. They also play in the band NATL PARK SRVC who released an excellent album earlier this year. They are both joining me this year as editors, and I can’t thank them enough for taking that weight off my shoulders. Aside from the help editing, having these two by my side checking over our submissions will be an absolute joy and will help ensure we finish out this project on a strong note. It’s probably obvious, but I couldn’t be happier to have them on board. 

So that’s where we’re at; three editors, a bunch of writers, and 25 of the weirdest Sufjan Christmas songs possible. It’s going to be a fun year, and I’m genuinely excited to share another holiday season with you all. 

Tiring and time-consuming as running this site may be, it’s one of the most rewarding parts of my holiday season, and I relish being able to share these stories with the world. As always, thank you for reading along, thank you for being here, and thank you for sharing your holiday spirit with us. We’ll see you all on December 1st. 

Love Taylor, Bethany, and Wes.