‘American Idol’ Winner Scotty McCreery Croons What ‘Christmas in Heaven’ Is Like for Lost Loved Ones

(Getty Images | Jason Kempin)

Christmas is a time when many Americans take the opportunity to spend time with family. But the idea of being “home for holidays” has a different meaning for people who have lost loved ones. Family traditions like decorating the tree, stuffing stockings, giving gifts, and cooking a big meal aren’t quite the same when a person who has been part of them for a long time passes on.

Most Christmas songs focus on the season’s cheer. But on his holiday album “Christmas with Scotty McCreery,” the country singer took time to think about those who are missing that special person when December comes around with a unique track called “Christmas in Heaven.”

Viewers of American Idol will likely remember Scotty McCreery from his improbable run to victory in Season 10 in 2011. As Taste of Country put it, “McCreery garnered huge attention from the moment he auditioned, partly because of how unusual it seemed for such a rich, well-developed baritone voice to emerge from such a gangly-looking kid.”

Only 16 years old at the time, this self-described “all-American” teenage sensation from the tiny town of Garner, North Carolina, made a big splash on the show with his mature delivery and performance persona, as well as his humility and kindness toward other contestants.

After his surprise victory, McCreery released his debut album “Clear as Day” in 2011. Following up on it with his Christmas album, the song “Christmas in Heaven” showed McCreery’s maturity as a singer and songwriter. The song begins reflecting on the continuity of Christmas, at least on the outside:

December hasn’t changed

This town looks the same

They still light that tree in the city square

But one thing is different for the singer, which is the person missing in his life. But while they are gone from this earth, McCreery imagines where they are in the next life:

Is the snow falling down on the streets of gold?

Are the mansions all covered in white?

Are you singing with angels ‘Silent Night.’

Taking the images of heaven from the Bible, McCreery tries to understand them through all the images of popular Christmas songs that also appear on his album, including Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow, and Jingle Bells.

Describing the album as “warm and familiar as a cup of Hot Cocoa,” the music blog Roughstock described “Christmas in Heaven” as “the kind of performance that makes for a yearly Christmas staple.” Calling the song “one to hold on to,” Taste of Country felt that “McCreery’s story of the one he’s missing come Dec. 25 shows emotional depth and maturity.”

Their reviewer suggests grabbing “a box of tissues if you’ve just lost a mother, father, friend or even a dog and plan to buy this album.”

While his first two albums won him lots of fans, McCreery was just getting started. It took several years of trying to find his voice and changing record labels to find a company that believed in his vision, but McCreery’s single “Five More Minutes” in 2017 became his first number-one-charting hit on Billboard Country Airplay.

Inspired by the death of his grandfather, “Christmas in Heaven” reflects on time spent with loved ones and the feeling of missing them after they have passed away. The moving video for the song has gained almost 100 million views on YouTube and features pictures and home video of McCreery and his grandfather.

As McCreery told Variety, “[a]s soon as I wrote it, I tweeted out, ‘I think I just wrote my favorite song I’ve ever written.’ It still holds true today. And it’s one of those songs that everybody can relate to. Everybody has that person or place or thing they want to spend five more minutes with.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously listed the title of the song. The title of the song is “Christmas in Heaven.” The Epoch Times regrets the error.