Okay, I think it is not just my favorite Christmas song - I think it is one of my favorite songs ever written...

I was always and will always be team Last Christmas...but then I heard Merry Christmas, please don't call. It is not a Christmas song - I don't think it is a Chrismtas song in the traditional sense. Most Christmas songs are happy go lucky and I love that too (there is a sense of optimism) but Merry Christmas, please don't call surpringly nuanced and melancholic. There are layers to pull apart and it leaves you feeling these feelings - grief - melancholia - relief. It's a rollercoaster of emotions - and I think I have to talk about it in that aspect...It is not any other Christmas song - it is this weird one that dips into this feeling of being alone and cutting yourself away from it all...

I recently had a similar experience - and this song makes me relive it in the best pieces - I didn't go home for the hols and I spent a large part of the days leading up to Christmas alone - And I am on a rocky relationship with my parents and I don't exactly have those conversations with them (it's usually a lot of the same thing - and just a daily check in and there's a rift between us all) but that period was also strangely beautiful - I had these blocks of time for reading and writing and I also did a lot of reflective thinking and just everything made sense...and this song brings it all back.

I don't know why - but this one song has changed my life almost completely and has helped me heal...it's probably the one song that's going to be on my mind for a really really long time...with these other songs :)

Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call

You're on Your Own Kid + I hate it Here + The Smallest Man Who Ever lived + Epiphany

Call Your Mom + You're Gonna Go Far + The View Between Villages

Piano Man and Vienna

I know the end

Pink Pony Club + The Subway

Please, please, please let me get what I want

Keating's Triumph (Not a song technically but same logic)

My Shot (Or most songs from Hamilton)