Two holiday records sit in front of a Christmas tree at JT Griffith's home in Portland, Ore. on Dec 20, 2025. Songs from "OCMS XMAS" by Old Crow Medicine Show (left) and "Season's Greetings" from Tatsuro Yamashita are some of the standout selections in OPB's 2025 holiday music roundup.
Courtesy of JT Griffith
The holidays are often a time of reflection, and this year we wanted to take you back to March 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic had only just begun, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued a stay-at-home order requiring people to “remain in their places of residence to the maximum extent possible.”
At the time, no one knew how long it was going to last, and to fill what we thought could be a few weeks of downtime at home, our “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori started a short series that explored different genres of music from country to classical, local bands and more.
As the weeks turned into months, we found ourselves in December and figured we should wrap up the year with an exploration of Christmas music. And though a lot has changed since then, that tradition has not.
JT Griffith is creative director and founder of LIMINAL Music and the longtime Christmas music curator for OPB, KMHD and the Oregon Zoo’s Zoo Lights.
He joined Ligori for a sixth installment of holiday cheer.
Crystal Ligori: For folks who are not in the know, you do have an encyclopedic knowledge of music in general, but Christmas music is definitely one of your fortes. This year, you actually got to fulfill a lifelong dream. Tell me about it.
JT Griffith: I have done some work as a music supervisor since 2000 and have worked on projects that have licensed Christmas songs before, but I’ve never worked on a Christmas movie.
It was always a dream of mine to work on a full-fledged Christmas movie from Hallmark. I finally did, and it was everything I expected it to be. It’s called “Tidings for the Season.”
We had a couple of different opportunities [for music] within the film, one of them was to have a first look at this new record from Mickey Guyton, who’s an African American pop country singer from Nashville.
Her record wasn’t released at the time — it is out now — and we were the first project to license one of her songs. The film starts with her music and the song called “Save A Little Christmas for Me.”
We also scored the entire project with some pre-recorded music and then worked with the composer, Tyler Westen, to bridge them all together in the same key and the same tone, to make sure the entire soundtrack all sounded cut from the same cloth. It was a lot of fun.
Ligori: Maybe surprisingly to some, each year, there are new holiday songs that come out. What were some of the highlights for you in 2025?
Griffith: Sometimes, I discover songs that have been out before, but maybe didn’t come across my radar, and some are brand new releases.
The playlist that we’ll share this year includes Christmas or holiday songs from some old favorites: the Icelandic jazz singer Laufey releases Christmas music every year, usually as a single, but this year there’s a full album, and there’s a song called “Christmas Magic.”
Leon Bridges and Norah Jones also have a really great Christmas song this year. The soul/R&B artist Kelly Finnigan has one as well. Parlor Greens and Mickey Guyton, of course.
One of the ones I was a little surprised about, but pleasantly surprised, was the U.K. band Ezra Collective, which tends to do a bit more of an Afropop kind of vibe, but they do a version of “Joy to the World” that was released as a single.
And then Old Crow Medicine Show, who are currently based in Nashville [and have a new Christmas album].
Ligori: Have you had any other holiday music surprise you recently?
Griffith: In a year when it still feels like the fall, I was very pleasantly connected to some holiday concerts.
One of them was when I went to Lewis & Clark and I saw its orchestra play an hour-long concert that included music from “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck, “The Nutcracker” by Tchaikovsky and then some music by Joe Hisaishi from Studio Ghibli’s “Howl’s Moving Castle,” which isn’t particularly a Christmas or holiday themed piece of music, but had that sort of airy lightness that is common in the Nutcracker.
It was just stunningly gorgeous and made me want them to put out a recording of it.
There was also a fourth annual show at Mississippi Studios hosted by the Portland Songwriters Guild. They have this challenge for a bunch of artists – I think it was maybe 14 or 15 songs performed by about 60 different musicians – and the goal is write a Christmas song for this concert, and we’ll record them and put them out.
I think that’s a great way of celebrating seasonal inspiration, and I hope that’s something they continue.
Ligori: You make a holiday playlist for OPB every year. We don’t have the time to go through them all, but let’s chat about a handful of songs on there that might be unique or special for you.
Griffith: In the playlist, there’s a range of some really classic artists that I was surprised were putting out music this year.
Herb Alpert, the classic Tijuana Brass trumpeter, released his first Christmas record in decades. Roberta Flack also has a posthumous holiday record out. Those grabbed my attention for being worth checking out.
Surprisingly, the pop singer Kesha put out a single, “Holiday Road.” There’s the Lindsey Buckingham song from the Vacation film series.
Then I discovered that the Seattle area band SYML put out Christmas music and has talked about maybe doing a full Christmas record, but did a single of “Jingle Bells,” which is in that sort of electronic melancholy style, and it had come out before, but I discovered it in 2025.
So I put it in the playlist as well as a song towards the end of the playlist that I think resonated really well.
Ligori: Is there anything else you want to mention as we wrap up our conversation?
Griffith: I think one of the sort of personal journeys of trying to share Christmas music or holiday music is looking for something that I’m really passionate about.
The album that I was the most excited about this year was the first ever vinyl reissue of a Japanese Christmas album that we’ve talked about before. Tatsuro Yamashita is sort of the Brian Wilson of Japan in that he’s very inspired by The Beach Boys, and he has a song called “Christmas Eve” that charted 30 years in a row. It was the biggest-selling single of the 80s.
When we talked about it a couple of years ago, I hadn’t ever heard it before. It inspired me to learn more about Yamashita, learn more about City Pop and Japanese music. And this year, his holiday album called “Season’s Greetings” was reissued.
It’s not strictly a Christmas album; it’s a bit more of a winter romance love letter to his fans.
After years of putting out a couple of songs as singles, he put out a Christmas record in 1993, and it was reissued this year for the first time. It really is in that pocket of 1950s, almost pre-rock, orchestral music popularized by people like Mario Lanza with some really big string arrangements. Then trending into doo-wop and something that would feel familiar to fans of The Beach Boys or The Four Seasons.
It’s just gorgeous, and I’m really happy to have a copy of it.
You can listen to the OPB Christmas playlist curated by JT Griffith on Spotify and hear more of the conversation by clicking the audio player at the top of this story.
