Sufjan Stevens - Worst Christmas Ever! [Red]

Sufjan Stevens has recorded more than a hundred Christmas songs, and Worst Christmas Ever! boils that sprawling, tinsel-strewn catalogue down to a single red vinyl LP.

This 2026 collection gathers 15 fan favourites from his two holiday box sets, Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold, built from the homemade Christmas EPs he began making for friends and family in the early 2000s. It also adds something new: On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better), his first original Christmas song in nearly fifteen years.

The range is the fun part. Familiar carols get homespun, lovingly odd arrangements, while his own songs sit somewhere between campfire singalong and quiet confession. Sister Winter is the emotional heart, a song of real seasonal loneliness that slowly opens into a festive refrain. That Was The Worst Christmas Ever! tells its sad little family story with a wry smile, and Maoz Tzur (Rock Of Ages), a Hanukkah hymn, closes the record on a warm note.

It captures what made the box sets so beloved: the sense of a gifted songwriter making music for the people closest to him, with all the charm and wobble that implies.

As a first stop in his holiday world, it could hardly be friendlier, and devotees get that new song as the bow on top.