Merry Christmas from the Family
Encyclopedia
Christmas music
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter.-Early:...
written by alternative country
Alternative country
Alternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
artist Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen, Junior is an American Texas Country singer-songwriter. He is popular with fans of traditional country music, folk music, college radio, and alt-country. Keen currently resides in Kerrville, Texas and maintains a ranch in Medina, Texas.-Early life:Growing up in Houston, Texas,...
. It has become extremely popular among the fans within his cult following. The song was first recorded for Keen's 1994 album, Gringo Honeymoon
Gringo Honeymoon
Gringo Honeymoon is an album by Texas-based folk singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen, released in the United States in August 1994 on Sugar Hill Records....
. A live version also appears on his 1996, No. 2 Live Dinner
No. 2 Live Dinner
No. 2 LIVE Dinner is an album of live music by Texas-based folk singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen, released in the United States in 1996) on Sugar Hill Records. The performances are from two different dates, the first fourteen tracks were recorded at Floores Country Store in Helotes, TX on August...
. The popularity of the song led Keen to write a sequel song, "Happy Holidays Y'all", and to publish a book, Merry Christmas from the Family in 2001. The original song, the book, and the sequel all center around the same cast of characters in Keen's humorous vision of a Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
style Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
.
The song
Growing up in Houston, TexasHouston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
, Robert Earl Keen didn't often see snow at Christmas time. He says "I didn't even know what a chestnut
Chestnut
Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...
looked like until I was 30 years old and saw it in a picture book… It was a different kind of Christmas. Every Christmas song I had ever heard didn't have a lot to do with growing up in Houston where it was most likely 85 degrees and 95 percent humidity."
"Merry Christmas from the Family" describes the Christmas gathering of a fairly dysfunctional
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
Texas family whose merrymaking—which includes drinking alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
, carving a turkey, watching a televised ball game and smoking cigarettes—seems to be punctuated with Christmas music
Christmas music
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter.-Early:...
and the need to run to convenience stores for additional supplies such as fake snow. Various family members and events are described throughout the verses. No one is sure how to react to a younger sister bringing her Mexican boyfriend to the party, but as soon as he sings "Feliz Navidad" he is welcomed into the fold. Brother Ken arrives with five children from two of his previous marriages. Ken's new wife, Kay, chain smokes and "talks all about AA
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
." Extended family also appear. Fred and Rita—whose relationship to the narrator appears to have been forgotten—arrive from Harlingen
Harlingen, Texas
Harlingen is a city in Cameron County in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, United States, about from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The city covers more than , and is the second largest city in Cameron County and the sixth largest in the Rio Grande Valley...
in a motor home, which when plugged in, overloads the electrical system and knocks out the family's Christmas lights. The family then waits on the front lawn and joins together in singing "Silent Night" when cousin David flips the breaker
Circuit breaker
A circuit breaker is an automatically operated electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by overload or short circuit. Its basic function is to detect a fault condition and, by interrupting continuity, to immediately discontinue electrical flow...
that brings the lights back on.
The "Linen Rule"
Keen calls the song the "Rocky Horror Picture Show of Christmas songs" saying that whether singing before a group of 1000 or 6000 the entire audience sings along. And in particular shouts out the line, "Mix Bloody MarysBloody Mary (cocktail)
A Bloody Mary is a popular cocktail containing vodka, tomato juice, and usually other spices or flavorings such as Worcestershire sauce, Peri-Peri Sauce, Tabasco sauce, beef consomme or bouillon, horseradish, celery, olive, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and celery salt...
'cause we all want one."
Due to the immense popularity of the song among Robert Earl Keen's fans he had to create restrictions limiting the time of year during which his band will play the song:
"Well, it's a real popular song with us, I have nine records out and this song just sort of cropped up and became a real favorite and we get requests for it all year round. So, I had to create this rule, I call it the 'Linen Rule', where we don't play the song as long as you can wear linen. So it saves it and makes it fresh for the holiday season. So we start playing it around Labor Day and we play it on through the holidays. It's the big number particularly in December that we close with." –Robert Earl Keen
Covers
Cover versions of the song have been performed by artist such as Jill SobuleJill Sobule
Jill Sobule is an American singer-songwriter best known for the 1995 single "I Kissed a Girl", and "Supermodel" from the soundtrack of the 1995 film Clueless...
, Rosie O'Donnell
Rosie O'Donnell
Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...
with the Dixie Chicks
Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...
, and Montgomery Gentry
Montgomery Gentry
Montgomery Gentry is an American country music duo composed of vocalists Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry. The two began performing in the 1990s as part of a band which also included Eddie Montgomery's brother John Michael Montgomery, and founded the existing duo in 1999.Signed to Columbia Records,...
. Montgomery Gentry's version also charted at #38 on Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
in 2001.
Sequel
Keen's 1998 album, Walking DistanceWalking Distance (album)
Walking Distance is an album by Texas-based folk singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen, released in the United States in 1998 on Arista Records.-Track listing:All tracks written by Robert Earl Keen, except where noted#"Down That Dusty Trail" – 3:39...
included a sequel, "Happy Holidays Y'all". Keen states, "I vowed when I really started writing songs that I'd never write a sequel. But I thought, well, you know, why not."
According to Keen the second song fills in some of the gaps on the characters and brings them a little farther along into their holiday celebration: "The song 'Merry Christmas from the Family' is set in the present tense. This song is set in the present tense, but little further in the future—say like after the party when everybody's packing up and leaving on the 26th of December."