"Holidays" is a song by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor from her fourth major-label studio album and first Christmas album, A Very Trainor Christmas (2020), featuring musical group Earth, Wind & Fire. Trainor wrote the song with Philip Bailey, Eddie Benjamin, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson, and its producer, Mike Sabath. It became available as the album's fifth track on October 30, 2020, when it was released by Honest OG Recording and Epic Records. "Holidays" is influenced by several genres and incorporates trumpets, layered harmonies, and horn bleats in its production.
Music critics were positive about "Holidays" and compared it to Earth, Wind & Fire's signature sound, specifically their 1978 single "September". Commercially, the song debuted at number 10 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales chart and reached number 35 on Canada AC. Sarah McColgan directed its music video, in which Trainor sings with them on a decorated stage. Trainor and Earth, Wind & Fire performed the song for NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller Center special, and she sang it on television shows The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Today.
Background
In January 2020, shortly before the release of Meghan Trainor's third major-label studio album, Treat Myself (2020), Billboard announced that she had started writing original Christmas songs, planning to release them later in the year. Three months into the COVID-19 lockdowns, she decided that it was the right time to complete her Christmas album. Trainor's intention with the project was to "spread some joy this year" in contrast to the gloom surrounding the world at the time.<ref name="NPR">{ { cite web |title=Meghan Trainor Brings Much-Needed Joy to 2020 with A Very Trainor Christmas''' |url=https://www.npr.org/transcripts/948315583 |publisher=NPR |access-date=August 4, 2023 |date=December 20, 2020 |url-status=live |archive-date=April 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423194545/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/948315583 }}</ref> Trainor recalled that most of the work for the album was done in "July and August", when the weather was hot. Trainor pre-recorded two music videos and fifteen performances five months into her pregnancy, for later use. She wanted the album to feel like "a pop Christmas", something that could be played throughout the year, and decided to include original songs along with covers.
Trainor wrote "Holidays" with Earth, Wind & Fire members Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson, along with Eddie Benjamin, and its producer, Mike Sabath. In an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she announced that the soon-to-be-filmed music video for her Earth, Wind & Fire collaboration would be the first one shot during her pregnancy. On September 9, 2020, Trainor officially announced the album title as A Very Trainor Christmas on her social media accounts. She revealed the album's tracklist on October 22, 2020, which included "Holidays" as the fifth track. Trainor stated: "'[They] are [one] of my family's all-time favorites. We worship the ground they walk on, so to get them to feature on this album still doesn't feel real. Best Christmas present ever!'" The song became available for digital download on A Very Trainor Christmas, which Honest OG Recording and Epic Records released on October 30.
Composition
"Holidays" is two minutes and 45 seconds long. Sabath produced and programmed the song. He handled vocal production with Trainor and engineered it with her brother Justin. All three provided background vocals alongside Benjamin, Bailey, Daryl Sabara, Tristan Hurd, Maddie Ziegler, and Philip Doron Bailey. Benjamin and Morris O'Connor play guitar, Bailey and Johnson play percussion, White plays bass, Hurd plays trumpet, John Paris plays drums, Rashawn Ross and Will Artope play trumpet, Gary Bias plays alto and tenor saxophones, Reginald Young plays trombone, and Ray Brown plays horns orchestration. Serban Ghenea mixed the song, and Dale Becker mastered it.
"Holidays" is an uptempo song driven by trumpets, which incorporates layered harmonies and horn bleats. The song's musical style has been described differently by critics. The Associated Press's Mark Kennedy called it "an old-school, propulsive funky" song. Allan Sculley of The Spokesman-Review wrote that it "illustrates the connecting threads between '70s R&B/pop and current-day pop". Writing for Idolator, Mike Wass stated that Trainor "moves forward a couple of decades, production-wise" compared to the A Very Trainor Christmas track "My Kind of Present".