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Lisette Xavier admits she was a little down in the dumps when she wrote Almost Christmas.
In any other year, this might seem like a strange mindset for writing a festive tune. But this is 2020. Like everyone else, the Calgary-based singer-songwriter and music teacher had plenty of downtime to contemplate how this year’s holidays were going to be quite different.
“I got on my piano, not even thinking that I was going to write a song,” she says. “I just went to it to practise and feel better, because that’s what music does for me. Pretty quickly, this song came out and I thought it was pretty interesting that I was starting to really appreciate things that I had previously taken for granted. So that’s the tone that the song took. As weird and disappointing as certain aspects of this year are, it’s kind of a cool thing that the things that make this year really different are going to make me appreciate everything moving forward.”
“It came together pretty organically, but it definitely just started with me being sad,” she adds.
The bittersweet piano ballad, Almost Christmas, eventually grew into a more communal celebration. Xavier decided to put out a call on social media to Calgarians to share their own experiences, which she put together for a video that had them sharing their 2020 highs and lows in handwritten notes.
The responses definitely ran the gamut. Participating Calgarians wrote about what they missed most in 2020. Some were heartbreaking, such as the young girl who writes that this was the first Christmas she had “without seeing Nana” or the man facing his first Christmas without seeing his niece and nephew. Others just listed specific events or groups they missed, everything from The Calgary Youth Orchestra to Calgary Horror Con to the Calgary Folk Music Festival.
The video then switches to happier musings, with participants focusing on the positives of 2020. Again, the responses are varied. One woman says she finally sought proper treatment for mental illness, one man celebrates 2020 as the first year of him going meat-free, while another woman reports that she fell in love.
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