Kelly Clarkson shared a new holiday song this week that will feel refreshingly relatable for anyone feeling lonely or less than jolly. The singer, who is in the middle of an extended divorce battle, opened up about the story behind an emotional track titled “Merry Christmas (To the One I Used to Know).”
“The holidays come with a whole range of emotions,” Clarkson said on Wednesday during an NBC special, Kelly Clarkson Presents: When Christmas Comes Around. The 39-year-old recalled what a difficult place she was in when she was inspired to create the piece of music. “I’m gonna be real with y’all: When I wrote this next song, I was crying my face off—which happens even at Christmastime, everyone,” she said. “I had just put my kids to bed and I was just going through it, having a really hard time.” In June 2020, Clarkson filed for divorce from her ex, Brandon Blackstock, citing irreconcilable differences. The former couple shares a 7-year-old daughter named River and a 5-year-old son named Remington.
Clarkson explained that she made the track both for herself and anyone else going through difficulties. “It’s been a really tough year for a lot of us. And I wrote this song for me, but also because there aren’t many holiday songs for people feeling alone or lost or just plain sad,” she said.
The song, which Clarkson debuted on a holiday album released in October, features lyrics about remembering a previous love around the holidays: “But I know when Christmas comes around / And the snow falls like a fresh start on the ground / You aren’t the one I’m missing, he left long ago / But Christmas Eve, my gift to me is dancing with your ghost / So merry Christmas to the one I used to know.”
The Voice judge tipped her hat to Dolly Parton’s “Hard Candy Christmas,” one of the few classic holiday songs that does speak to people feeling down during the holidays. “It’s about getting through a tough holiday. I absolutely love that song and it allowed me to write this,” she explained.
Clarkson, whose ongoing divorce has been drawn out by several legal battles, as USA Today reports, has previously spoken about the therapeutic power of songwriting when it comes to coping with her divorce and mourning her marriage. “I don’t know how anybody, I’ll just be real with you, goes through grief like divorce, any kind of grief, any kind of loss, without having an outlet like this,” Clarkson told Entertainment Tonight in February. Clarkson said that she had written “like 60 songs” that were helpful for “getting it out.”
“Merry Christmas (To the One I Used to Know)” has the potential to offer consolation to others too, because the theme that Clarkson touches on is a relatable one for many. Despite the fact that it is completely normal to feel a wide range of emotions during this time of year, as Clarkson said, the already stressful holiday season is marked by cultural expectations of constantly feeling joyful and celebrating being together with your loved ones. Hard circumstances and big feelings don’t go on pause because it’s the holidays—in fact, they often ramp up—and the idea that you should feel or be a certain way can make someone who is down or lonely feel even worse and more isolated.
If this time of year is rough for you right now, check out these tips from people who spend the holidays alone, some advice from the pros on dealing with family estrangement during the holidays, and general holiday self-care tips.
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