By Ethan Beck

The end of the year has always felt difficult. When every day is a gray purgatory, I tend to become more self-conscious about the year’s disappointments. And then there’s Christmas in the middle of it all.

My memories of Christmas are a little strange, as I was raised Jewish. I often celebrated the holiday with extended family members and remember feeling slightly out of place. By the time I was a teenager, I had turned on Christmas altogether. This, of course, preceded my New York days, where there’s a certain wonderment in the air towards the end of December that the slushy atmosphere of Pittsburgh just can’t compete with. Most irritating was the holiday music, which made me feel like I was being held hostage by the car radio. So few of these Christmas classics had anything to offer beyond the mandated cheer of the season.

In 2007, Sufjan Stevens held a contest in which whoever wrote the best Christmas song would be given ownership of an exclusive holiday tune that he wrote. Alec Duffy won with an original called “Every Day Is Christmas” and then proceeded to hold yearly in-person listening parties of a somber, beautiful Sufjan song titled “Lonely Man of Winter” for about a decade. Years later, I was a teenager who first heard of Sufjan through the buzz around Carrie & Lowell as I began familiarizing myself with Stereogum and Pitchfork. After seeing Call Me By Your Name at the local theater in my neighborhood, I was reminded of the tender, loving qualities of Sufjan’s work, which prompted a casual dive into his discography.

I still had certain Scrooge-like tendencies when Sufjan finally shared “Lonely Man of Winter” with the listening public in 2018. Even still, I had a few exceptions to my belief that Christmas songs are inherently bad, beginning with LCD Soundsystem’s “Christmas Will Break Your Heart” and Paul Simon’s “Getting Ready for Christmas Day.” I’ll even admit that I took some pleasure in how the latter of those songs reminded everyone that, during the holiday season, bills still need to be paid and wars still get fought. Plus, just like “Let It Snow” and “White Christmas” before it, “Getting Ready for Christmas Day” was written by a Jewish person.

In time, my petty grudges and squabbles against “All I Want For Christmas Is You” (and its ilk) have slowly subsided. While writing for Time Out, I wrote a first-person review of a Mariah Carey-themed pop-up bar, primarily to note that listening to “Father Christmas” by The Kinks and getting drunk on espresso cocktails is awesome.

I still believe that the best Christmas songs push beyond forced merriment en route to something thornier and more engaging, and “Lonely Man of Winter” is no different. Sufjan’s song is built upon indecision, a feeling of disconnection, and those airy, uneasy harmonies. For me, the downtime at the end of the year can be a source of unsteadiness. “Lonely Man of Winter” is helpful for sizing up the past year, drinking eggnog, and trying to feel gratitude even if I have some chagrin.

“I have no idea if what I want is better than this,” Sufjan sings, locating the true concerns of the season: did I do everything I wanted this year? Do I feel connected with the people around me? How do these things compare to last year? What do I want to achieve next year? What can I do to care for the people in my life better? It doesn’t matter what the answers to those questions are — “Lonely Man of Winter” remains the ideal soundtrack for when it comes time to figure them out.

Ethan Beck is a reporter and critic who was born in Pittsburgh and is now based in New York. His work has appeared in Paste, Washington Post, Paste, Los Angeles Times, Bandcamp Daily, Vice, and others.