The story behind What Christmas Means to Me
What Christmas Means to Me is the smile on the same shelf as Someday at Christmas. Stevie Wonder recorded both in the sessions around his 1967 Tamla album, but they do not do the same job. This one is joyful, quick, and full of the season's pleasant evidence: candles burning low, mistletoe, cold air, music at the door. Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story wrote it. Wonder sings it like a man who is allowed, for three minutes, to love the holiday that his other song wants to reform.
The groove is the argument. A Motown backbeat, bright horns or their memory, and a vocal that leans forward make Christmas sound like a party that has already begun. There is no someday in the chorus. The meaning is present tense. That present tense is why the track became a standard for R and B holiday albums and for later pop singers who wanted December funk without writing a new one. The writers gave them a pocket and a list. Wonder gave them the pocket's best first occupant.
History and origins
The song was cut for Someday at Christmas, produced by Henry Cosby and released in November 1967. Wonder was still a teenager and already a veteran of hits. The album is remembered now for its serious title track, but the session also needed a song that could be played while people actually danced or cooked. What Christmas Means to Me is that song. The writers were inside the Gordy family orbit: Anna Gordy Gaye and George Gordy, with Allen Story. Motown Christmas music often came from that in house confidence, staff writers and a star who could make a seasonal lyric sound like a Saturday night.
The record did not have to top the pop chart to become canonical. It lived on the album, then on radio in December, then on the private canons of singers who studied Wonder. By the 1990s it was an obvious cover for anyone building a soulful Christmas set. Paul Young recorded it in 1992 for A Very Special Christmas 2, a benefit context that put a British pop soul voice on a Motown groove. Hanson, in the middle of their own youthful fame, put it on Snowed In in 1997 and let a rock band of brothers chase the backbeat. The song was proving portable.
The 2000s kept the parade going. Jessica Simpson included it on a 2004 Christmas album, folding Motown joy into a pop singer's holiday project. En Vogue and other R and B acts had already shown how natural the tune sits in group harmony. None of these covers retire the 1967 vocal. They orbit it. Wonder's phrasing is playful without being cute, and his sense of time is the hard part to borrow. You can copy the chords and still miss the lift. The better covers know that and dance anyway.
Streaming era seasons have been kind to the track because it solves a playlist problem. After a run of slow ballads and novelty jokes, a programmer needs two and a half minutes of uncomplicated happiness with a real rhythm section. This record is that relief, and it comes from an artist nobody has to apologize for. It also keeps the Gordy writing credit in circulation, which matters. Motown Christmas is not only the famous voices. It is a building full of writers who knew how a groove could carry holly without dropping it.
Full lyrics
Excerpt
Candles burnin' low
Lots of mistletoe
Lots of snow and ice
Everywhere we go
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Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The meaning is gratitude for the season as it is already practiced. Candles, kisses, weather, and music are enough. The song does not ask the world to change before the party can start. That limit is not ignorance. It is a choice of scope, especially on an album whose title song has already asked for the largest possible change. A listener who plays both hears a mature Christmas mind: hope for justice, and also a door opening tonight. Wonder was young when he sang that double mind. The double mind still sounds adult.
There is a social meaning in the groove as well. Mid century popular Christmas was crowded with choirs, crooners, and country novelties. A Motown record this loose and sure says the holiday belongs equally to Black pop's dance floor. Later R and B albums that treat Christmas as a soul session, not as a costume, are downstream of this confidence. The lyric's images are traditional. The rhythm is the claim. What the season means, in this track, is that the beat does not take the month off.
Fun facts and statistics
- Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story wrote What Christmas Means to Me.
- Stevie Wonder recorded it for the 1967 album Someday at Christmas, produced by Henry Cosby.
- The mood is joyful and present tense, unlike the title song's deferred hope.
- Candles, mistletoe, and a Motown groove carry the lyric.
- Paul Young covered it in 1992, and Hanson recorded it in 1997.
- It has become a standard on soul and pop holiday albums.
Top 5 most popular renditions
Stevie Wonder
1967
The Tamla album track is the definition of the song. Wonder's vocal is bright, rhythmic, and pleased, and Henry Cosby's production gives the groove enough snap to make the household images feel like a celebration rather than a catalog. On the same record as Someday at Christmas, this performance is the necessary other mood. It has outlasted many louder novelties because the time feel is perfect. Covers start from here even when they modernize the drums. The smile in the original is disciplined, not sugary.
Stevie Wonder
Paul Young
1992
Young's version for A Very Special Christmas 2 moves the Motown pocket into a British pop soul voice and a benefit album context. He does not imitate Wonder's timbre. He honors the tempo and the list. Hearing a singer better known for 1980s ballads take on this track shows how the song had become a standard you could bring to a charity compilation beside much older carols. The joy survives the change of accent. The backbeat remains the reason to choose this title instead of a slower peace song.
Paul Young
Hanson
1997
On Snowed In, Hanson chase the song with youthful rock energy and brother harmonies. The result is less funky than 1967 and more like a bright band that loves the chorus. That is a legitimate way to cover a groove song if the energy stays honest. Their version also sits in a 1990s moment when a very young group was expected to make a Christmas album and chose a Motown song rather than only comedy originals. Wonder's party proved it could be a kids' record without becoming childish.
Hanson
Jessica Simpson
2004
Simpson's recording places the song in a glossy pop holiday album, one more step away from the Detroit session and one step further into mainstream December programming. The risk is that the groove becomes a backing track for a personality. The opportunity is a new audience that will now recognize the title. She sings it as a cheerful list, which is what the writers wrote. It does not replace Wonder's timing. It confirms that Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story built something later decades could still use at a party.
Jessica Simpson
En Vogue
2002
En Vogue's harmonies show the song in a naturally R and B group setting, where answers and ad libs can decorate the list without losing the pocket. Motown music always implied more than one voice even when one star led. A later group cover makes that implication obvious. Their reading keeps Christmas on the dance side of the holiday, which is the side this lyric chose. Among many covers, a strong harmony version is especially faithful to the tradition Wonder came from, even when the arrangement is updated.
En Vogue
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place What Christmas Means to Me in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach Motown soul before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story, and the music to Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story. The year to remember is 1967, and the place to name is Detroit.
This sits in the library as a popular song. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story wrote What Christmas Means to Me. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. Stevie Wonder recorded it for the 1967 album Someday at Christmas, produced by Henry Cosby. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. What Christmas Means to Me will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
Anna Gordy Gaye, George Gordy, and Allen Story wrote it. Stevie Wonder recorded it in 1967 for the album Someday at Christmas, with Henry Cosby producing. It is a Motown composition sung by Motown's most remarkable young voice of that moment. The writing credit belongs in the story because the groove and the list of seasonal images were built for him by staff writers in that orbit, not improvised as a public domain carol.
They share an album and a singer, and they do opposite emotional work. Someday at Christmas hopes for a future without war, hunger, or fear. What Christmas Means to Me celebrates the holiday that is already happening, with candles, mistletoe, weather, and a danceable beat. One is a plea. The other is a party. Playing them together is the point of the album's range, not a contradiction to be resolved.
Because it is joyful, short, and rhythmically clear, and because Wonder's recording proved the tune works. Soul singers, pop singers, and even youthful rock bands can use it when they want a Christmas song that moves. Paul Young in 1992, Hanson in 1997, and many R and B versions since are evidence. The song gives a holiday album an engine. Slow ballads cannot do that job.
It means the ordinary lovely things of a celebration: low candles, mistletoe, company, music, and the pleasure of going out in the season together. There is no policy platform and no joke at someone's expense. The meaning is present tense gratitude set to a Motown groove. That is smaller than peace on earth and, for the length of the record, enough. The album's other song can ask for the rest.
Why this song endures
The song endures because joy with craft endures. It is not the deepest lyric on Wonder's Christmas album, and it does not need to be. It is the one that makes the album playable at a party, and parties are where a great deal of Christmas music either dies or gets adopted. Covers by pop, rock, and R and B singers across decades are the adoption papers. The title is also a useful phrase. People really do ask what the season means. The record answers with a groove and a few household images, which is sometimes the true answer.
It endures beside the heavier song as a lesson in programming a life. Not every December hour can be a protest or a prayer. Some hours are candles and company. Wonder recorded both hours. Singers who only cover the party track should at least know the other one exists, so they understand what this happiness is next to. Singers who only cover the hope song should know that Motown also threw a party. The album's range is the heritage. This track is the part of the heritage that gets your foot moving.