‘Tis the season! Taylor Swift brought Christmas cheer to Swifties near and far with the premiere of her music video “Christmas Tree Farm” on Friday, December 6.
The visual features festive home videos from the 29-year-old’s childhood, showing her going sledding, sitting on Santa’s lap and getting a guitar as a Christmas present.
The “Lover” singer made the big announcement about the track, which debuted at midnight on Friday, in a video posted on her social media accounts.
“I know this is pretty wild, but I’ve just written a Christmas song. I feel like it’s weird to just wait a year to put it out. I don’t have anyone to ask right now except for Meredith,” she said before turning to her cat and asking, “Should I put out a Christmas song, like, now? OK that’s hard to tell.”
The Grammy winner captioned the video, “When in doubt, ask the itty bitty pretty kitty committee. When they shun you with silence, ambivalence, and judgmental brush offs… just put the song out anyway. NEW XMAS SONG AND VIDEO (made from home videos 👨👩👧👦) OUT TONIGHT #ChristmasTreeFarm.”
This isn’t Swift’s first time recording festive songs for the Christmas season. She released her Taylor Swift Holiday Collection EP in 2007 where she sang classics such as “Last Christmas” and “Santa Baby” and originals like “Christmases When You Were Mine” and “Christmas Must Be Something More.”
Swift’s new release comes amid her legal battle with Big Machine Records’ executives Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta. The hitmaker claimed in November that the record label was prohibiting her from performing songs released under her former label, Big Machine Records, at the 2019 AMAs and from using them in her upcoming Netflix documentary. Big Machine denied the allegations in a statement to Us Weekly the next day.
The singer went on to perform a medley of her hits during the AMAs on November 24, including “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off.”
Swift thanked her fans for sticking by her side while accepting her award for Artist of the Decade. “Wow, I really don’t have anything articulate to say. I just — just that [the] fact that the last year of my life has had some of the most amazing times and also some of just the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life,” Swift told the crowd. “Not a lot of them are things that haven’t been public, and I wanted to thank you so much for being the thing that has been a constant in my life.”
