'Worst Christmas Ever!' is a single-album collection that distills Sufjan Stevens' expansive holiday catalog into one record. Fifteen fan favorites, drawn from more than one hundred Christmas recordings across the box sets Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold, arrive alongside the newly released original "On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better)," Sufjan's first new Christmas song in nearly fifteen years. The new track is built around apology, self-assessment, and asking for forgiveness: "On this Christmas, I ask forgiveness for all the funny things I've said and done," Sufjan sings.
It all started in 2001, when Sufjan set out to make a Christmas gift for friends and family and ended up with a seven-song recording he called 'Noel, Vol. 1'. Every few Christmases he made another one, always the same way: one week in December, usually at home, pulling in whoever was around, which meant collaborations with Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, Cat Martino, Gabriel Kahane, and members of Danielson. Asthmatic Kitty released the first five volumes as a set in 2006 and the next five in 2012.
Fourteen years after that last volume, 'Worst Christmas Ever!' is the first time Sufjan's holiday music has been compiled into a single record.
