A Very She & Him Christmas is the first Christmas album and the third studio album by the folk/indie rock band She & Him consisting of actress and musician Zooey Deschanel (vocals, piano, ukulele) and M. Ward (guitar, production).[The album was released in October 2011, and features several covers of classic holiday songs. The twelve-track album is distributed by Merge Records and proceeds from every album sold are being donated to 826 National, a nonprofit network of writing and tutoring centres.
Deschanel and Ward met on the set of the film The Go-Getter, in which Deschanel had a starring role. Martin Haynes, the director, introduced them to each other and asked them to sing a duet for the film’s end credits. They performed the song “When I Get to the Border” by Richard and Linda Thompson. The two bonded over a shared interest in albums produced by George Martin and Phil Spector.
Their cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was featured in the Christmas episode “The 23rd” of the TV-show New Girl, which stars Zooey Deschanel. In 2012 it was awarded a silver certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 20,000 copies throughout Europe and over 391,000 in the U.S.]
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received a score of 63, based on 16 critics, indicating “generally favourable” reviews. PopMatter gave the album a score of 7/10, writing that it was “plain beautiful” and that it was “a calm, simple and easy to listen to recording to sit with and relax.” A more mixed review from Pitchfork said that the songs were “just fine” but that She & Him “played this one too safe.”
With the majority of songs comprising just Deschanel’s brandy-and-butter thick vocal and M. Ward’s lightly shuffling West Coast guitar, the pair channel the perennially festive hum of recent jangly indie pop and give it purpose. “Christmas Day” itself has a lush pastoral feel reminiscent of The Carpenters’ seasonal efforts, and on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Ward’s guitar lingers poignantly on notes like a snowflake melting on your nose. It’s when Ward and Deschanel sing together atop beds of Spector-ish, old Hollywood vocal hum that they truly deliver on Christmas’ lush promise, as on a welcome revival of NRBQ’s “Christmas Wish,” a perfect soundtrack to overindulging on gingerbread lattes.
