By Jay Bracho

“These days, days, days run away like horses over the hills…”

What Christmas looks like for me has changed tremendously over the past few years. Granted, getting older and losing family and friends will change the tune of any celebration. What were once huge, communal gatherings have become cozy get-togethers and brief exchanges over the phone. I don’t entirely mind: my country of Venezuela revels through excess during the holidays, and a significant portion of my memories from when I was younger are marred by fireworks, alcohol, and rowdy relatives.

The holiday spirit depicted in the American TV shows and films that I grew up watching (intimate, soothing, warm) never quite materialized for me. Not to mention, there was a childish resentment over the sight of snow that I never really got over. All we get in December are flashes of frigid rain and pervasive humid heat, taking turns pelting down on us. Alas, that’s what we get for being near the equator.

Still, it was never outright bad. I still think fondly of our excessive Christmas Eve dinners, drinking age-appropriate eggnog, not-so-age-appropriately lighting up sparklers with my cousins, carelessly forgiving any flickering heat that burned pinholes through our sleeves and briefly kissed our wrists. There were periods of warmth, love, and wonder.

For most family gatherings, I was the designated DJ. I’d set up a speaker and go to town. I swear to God, every Christmas Eve, I would try to play Songs for Christmas in its entirety and could only get as far as “I Saw Three Ships” before a relative told me to knock it off. Silver & Gold received similar responses. Tough crowd for sure! These past few relatively lonely Decembers have been different. It’s just my parents, my two siblings, and my grandma each Christmas Eve.

Sufjan Stevens is a shared love of ours. As a questioning teen (faith, sexuality, the works), songs like “The Predatory Wasp…” and “The Owl and The Tanager” felt especially engineered to kill me, and their personal significance has only grown with time. I introduced my mom to Illinois years ago, and she never looked back. I’ve caught her humming “Chicago” more times than I can count. She mostly just thinks he’s neat! Her thoughts on each album she’s heard: Illinois is the eternal favourite, Age Of Adz, while interesting, is too kooky for her, and Javelin brings her to tears. The rest of the family hold milder, yet still appreciative thoughts on his music, which has allowed Songs for Christmas to become a holiday season staple.

Every room of our house has anywhere from one to four panes of textured glass windows. The hinges, old as they are, don’t allow these windows to close completely. Last Christmas Eve, the one thing that offset the chill brought on by a quick rain shower was the heat from our kitchen. I don’t even remember what my mom and I were baking; it might've been pan de jamón, torta negra, or quesillo. Possibly all of them. I do remember “Star of Wonder” playing from the living room and I was overcome with such a strong sense of longing that I remember choking up right over the stovetop.

“Star of Wonder” is almost certainly a song referencing the Star of Bethlehem, which led the Biblical Magi to Jesus’ birthplace to pay homage. In its seven-minute runtime, the song showcases plenty of Sufjan’s compositional staples: swirling electronics, breathy woodwinds, and an ever-ascending buildup that feels delirious and soothing at once. Its lyrics center around companionship and comfort: the opening couplet of “I call you from the comet’s cradle / I found you trembling by yourself” holds possibly some of the sweetest lines Sufjan has ever written.

What gets me about “Star of Wonder” is how the mystical, cryptic imagery of its verses is subverted by the refrain, in which Sufjan describes stars coming down to the yard, to his heart. Awe and astonishment, pure and intense clarity through an incantation repeated about ten times, backed with the instrumental excess only he can pull off. I’m not religious by any means — I was the only person in my Catholic high school to refuse confirmation, which gained me absolutely no favours with my peers — but I do love the thought that this potential spirit, higher power, titular star of wonder can bring everything into stark relief, lucidity above anything else. If there’s anything that Sufjan’s music consistently feels like, it’s a revelation.

I don’t think my mom noticed my brief crisis, and it’s probably better that way. Trying to explain how I felt at that very moment would’ve been a fool’s errand. But when the moment passed, and the song petered out, leading into “Holy, Holy, Holy,” she took a break from kneading dough to say, “Oh, that’s precious.” All I could do was nod.

Our preparations for Christmas have been running later and later every year, and this one doesn’t seem to be any different. The same plastic tree we’ve been adorning for the past decade is currently begging for release from our storage room, and the dinner courses for the 24th remain undecided. I used to fear that every year our spirits would dwindle further and further until we gave up celebrating altogether, but we’re stubborn and whimsical, and we love each other dearly. Especially for those who struggle through the holidays, “Star of Wonder” is a hymn of sorts — a promise that even under mantles of darkness, through doubt and isolation, there’s always the possibility of something beautiful happening.

Jay Bracho is a Venezuelan writer, music producer, and feral cat wrangler. They’ve released five albums of ambient, techno and other sorts of electronic racket as Jay Snow since 2018. Find them on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram as @telepathdesert.