By Paul McKean

Several years ago, my family had Christmas in the garage.

We huddled in our coats despite the unseasonably warm and misty Oregon weather on that December morning. Colorful tablecloths stolen from the abandoned Christmas dinner table hung across shelves with clothespins, and glittering lights illuminated a small artificial tree on my dad’s workbench.

It was 2020, and the garage was the site of the McKean family’s first (and, so far, only) socially-distanced holiday extravaganza in the carport. While the surroundings were modest, my mom’s valiant decorative efforts set a festive tone for a most unusual Christmas morning.

This was the year that “Christmas in the Room” by Sufjan Stevens became one of my most treasured Christmas songs.

The strangeness of the pandemic-era disruption put me back in touch with the beauty of Stevens’ song and the simple joy of gathering together with family. While my family’s garage Christmas was far from the worst COVID-related consequence that year, the change in routine was enough to give me a new perspective on the holiday and what really matters. “Christmas in the Room” shows the complex joys and sorrows that can be found in silent isolation, feelings that became all too familiar during the pandemic.

The song begins with stripped-down instrumentation to match its simple premise. For the narrator, this Christmas is different: “For as the day of rest draws near / It's just the two of us this year.” The usual trappings of Christmas are absent — no travel, no malls, no mistletoe. (As an introverted millennial who secretly delights in cancelled plans, I can especially relate to the narrator’s embrace of the calm.)

In the song’s chorus, Stevens contrasts the material elements of the holidays with the acts of a lover. “I’ll come to you, I’ll sing to you” and “I’ll dance with you, I’ll laugh with you,” he promises. Christmas isn’t a series of things; it’s about how we treat one another. We don’t buy Christmas, we make it. We manifest it.

There’s a subtle change in language which is woven into the choruses. We go from “like it’s Christmas in the room” to “‘til it’s Christmas in the room.” The first time through, there’s a bit of pretense. They are acting as if it’s the holiday; in the absence of a normal Christmas, the lovers are performing the next best thing. But then Christmas appears; through the love they shared, the couple has created it together.

Typical of Stevens’ Christmas works, there’s a touch of darkness as we reach the bridge: “Oh, I can see the day when we'll die / But I don't care to think of silence.” When we are with those we love, we are reminded that time is fleeting. This part of the song also resonates differently in the wake of the pandemic. While my holiday was merely disrupted, others’ were devastated. But then we find the light: “For now I hear you laughing / The greatest joy is like the sunrise.” By the end of the song, Christmas is here, and we have made it.

In “Christmas in the Room,” Stevens captures the yearning we all feel in late-stage capitalist Christmas to escape the consumerism and the stress. The song strips the holiday down to its bare essentials. The pursuit of a mythical simple Christmas is a common, even trite, trope in popular culture, but Stevens’ haunting melodies and simple production tells the story without relying on the schmaltzy nostalgia of “(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays,” the campy sleighbells of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” or the back-to-basics fantasy of your average Hallmark Channel romcom.

For Stevens, Christmas is just a room, a laughing lover, a dance and a song, a day of rest. You can celebrate “like” it’s Christmas no matter where you are or what day it is, without the trappings of elaborate decorations, stressful parties, or shopping mania. Whether you find yourself in your childhood home or a garage during a pandemic, Christmas is just an ordinary day.

And that’s more than enough.

Paul McKean is the Editorial Director at Willamette University, where he writes stories about the transformative impacts of higher education. He lives in Oregon with his husband, his dog Milo, and his Silver & Gold and Songs for Christmas vinyl boxsets.