How Christmas Songs Became My Winter Therapy
I never thought I’d write Christmas songs. For a long time, December just meant pressure, absence, and pretending to smile in rooms full of noise. But last winter, something shifted. I stopped writing songs for Christmas, and started writing songs during Christmas — the ones that reflected what it really felt like to be alone in a season made for closeness.
That’s how these three songs were born — not from holiday cheer, but from winter truths.
1. Midnight on Christmas Eve (duet with Kael Daemon)
This wasn’t meant to be a duet. It started as a line in my journal: “You said we were done… so why are you here?” That moment — the late-night knock, the ghost of an ex still alive in muscle memory — it lived in me for years. I didn’t know I had permission to write about it.
But I gave myself that permission. And Kael, with his haunting voice and unflinching honesty, gave the other side of the conversation. This isn’t a love song. It’s a relapse in 6/8 time. A ritual we repeat because it’s familiar. Midnight becomes a wound that reopens every year.
I recorded it with tears still drying on my cheeks. And yes, it still stings.
2. Mistletoe and Mixed Signals (duet with Kael Daemon)
We joked that this song is “Christmas with trust issues.” But it’s more than that.
I’ve been to those parties. I’ve stood under mistletoe with someone who wanted me in theory, not in truth. This track captures that emotional static — the push, the pull, the almost. It’s flirty, it’s toxic, it’s the kind of connection that leaves glitter on your soul but never sticks.
Kael brought the perfect energy to it: playful tension with a thread of sadness underneath. It’s the dance of pretending nothing’s happening while everything is. And yes, I wore red on purpose.
3. Wrap Me Up (solo)
This was my rebellion.
After the bruises of the other two tracks, I needed softness. Wrap Me Up is the one Christmas song I wish someone had written for me. It’s sensual, but innocent. Bold, but not demanding. It’s what I’d sing if I could climb inside a safe love and stay there for the night.
I imagined a warm apartment, soft lights, the smell of cinnamon. I imagined what it would feel like to be the gift — not the giver, not the fixer, not the survivor. Just someone wrapped up in another’s care. That’s the fantasy. And some days, it keeps me going.
Why I Write More in Winter
Maybe it’s the silence. Maybe it’s the ache. Maybe it’s the way the world slows down just enough for the emotions to catch up.
Winter is when I feel everything louder. It’s when the empty chairs feel the most obvious. It’s when grief curls around old ornaments, and memories knock like ex-lovers.
But it’s also the time when songs come easier — when melody becomes medicine. I don’t write to perform. I write to survive. And winter forces that survival into sound.
The Gift of Honest Music
These songs aren’t for the mall speakers. They’re for the ones who cry in the bathroom and pull themselves together with a red lip. They’re for the quiet ones. The ones healing in silence.
If you need something real this holiday — something that doesn’t wrap your wounds in glitter — maybe one of these songs will meet you there.
That’s all I hope for. That’s all I ever write for.
xo, Mathilde