Blake Shelton’s recently re-released holiday album, Cheers, It’s Christmas, features 17 tracks, including two new songs, “Two Step ’Round the Christmas Tree” and “Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas Eve” is a song co-penned by Blake’s girlfriend, Gwen Stefani, who included a version of the tune on her 2017 holiday album, You Make It Feel Like Christmas.
As Blake told Nash Nights Live co-hosts Elaina Smith and Shawn Parr, when he heard Gwen sing “Christmas Eve” for the first time, he “freaked out” and knew he wanted to include it on his re-release.
“It’s crazy because Gwen was working on her Christmas album, and she comes out to the ranch in Oklahoma,” says Blake. “She loves going out there and getting lost in the woods. She went for a run one morning—which I didn’t go on [laughing]—and she came back really quick and she was like, ‘Where’s my phone, where’s my phone?’ She grabbed her phone and had basically written a song on this jog, or at least a chorus. She finished the song later that day and she sang it for me. And I freaked out. I thought, ‘Wow, that sounds like a Christmas classic already.’ So she cut it for her album, and I knew I was supposed to re-release my Christmas album with some new tracks on it and I asked her, ‘I know you’re putting this on your Christmas album that’s coming out, but would you care if I cut it too for my Christmas album?’ So I cut the song Gwen co-wrote for my Christmas album.
“And then we re-cut that old Michael Martin Murphey song that Suzy Bogguss wrote called ‘Two Step ’Round the Christmas Tree.’ I always loved that one, so we put that one on there too.”
Listen to Blake’s version of “Christmas Eve” below, as well as Gwen’s recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u87j7VXuLiE
