Whether you’re staying at home for the holidays or have to travel somewhere for family that wouldn’t necessarily be on your “dream vacation” list, we’ve rounded up four location-specific Christmas songs that let you travel from the comfort of your own home (or someone else’s). Unlike other holiday songs that use vague niceties like “home” and “city” to describe the music’s setting, these tracks call out specific locations, from the sunny isles of Hawaii to the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
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Sure, you might actually be stuck in interstate traffic over the holidays. But with the press of a button, these songs can transport you miles away.
“Colorado Christmas” by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
California country group the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band might hail from Long Beach, but their take on Steve Goodman’s “Colorado Christmas” perfectly encapsulates the warm, cozy feeling of watching the snowfall in Colorado over the holidays. As most wistful country tunes do, the song begins with the narrator lamenting over being stuck in a Hollywood hotel surrounded by billboards and neon [that] took the place of silver bells in 84-degree weather.
The climactic chorus brings the listener further East: All along the Rockies, you can feel it in the air, from Telluride to Boulder down below. The closest thing to Heaven on this planet anywhere is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow.
“A Smoky Mountain Christmas” by Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton wrote this touching homage to holidays in her hometown (home-holler, more specifically) for the 1986 made-for-television musical film of the same name. The half-Snow White, half-Christmas fantasy follows Parton as Lorna Davis, a burnt-out professional from Los Angeles, who befriends seven orphans she discovered in an east Tennessee cabin.
“A Smoky Mountain Christmas” is more grounded in reality, harkening back to Parton’s childhood in Sevierville, Tennessee. I keep dreamin’ of a cabin in my Smoky Mountain home, she sings, rememberin’ my life there as a child. Just as free as the butterflies, the hummingbirds, and bees, as different as the snowflakes on the windows of my life.
“Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues
The controversial, divisive, but long-loved “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues is a Christmas song that will let the mind travel, even if it’s a place you don’t necessarily want to go. The song shifts from romantic imagery of New York City in December to a scornful, bitter argument between two past lovers who sling insults and slurs at one another. Unsurprisingly, those insults and slurs have been the topic of censorship debate every year since The Pogues first released the song in 1988.
Despite the scandal surrounding the song, it’s still a favorite among many who love to sing along to the refrain: The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay, and the bells are ringing out for Christmas day.
“Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)” by The Andrews Sisters
Finally, we end our list of Christmas songs for travel lovers with a sunny 1949 number from the Pacific: “Mele Kalikimaka.” Popularized by acts like the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby, this R. Alex Anderson composition is easily one of the most recognizable and beloved Hawaiian Christmas songs. The song has become part of the traditional Christmas canon alongside other less geographically specific songs like “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells.”
For the lucky individuals who live or have family who live on the beautiful islands of Hawaii, a bright Hawaiian Christmas day isn’t hard to imagine. But for the rest of us, the breezy, location-specific Christmas song is a fun way to imagine a holiday spent laying on the beach instead of shoveling the snow.
Photo by James Kriegsmann/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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