Christmas EveL

The record

Christmas EveL is the holiday special single Stray Kids released on 29 November 2021. It carries four tracks, with ‘Christmas EveL’ and ‘Winter Falls’ as double title tracks. It follows the second full-length album NOEASY by three months, and it is the group’s first seasonal release.

The album introduction on Bugs says the title adds the letter L to Christmas Eve, and that the record takes the mischief-maker of Christmas as its theme. The same text describes ‘Christmas EveL’ as written and composed by the in-house production team 3RACHA, twisting the sound of the season into something funky and hip-hop, and describes the other title track ‘Winter Falls’ as a song whose guitar line and warm melody sit against lyrics of a different weight. The closing track is an English version of ‘DOMINO’ from NOEASY, rewritten in English by Bang Chan, Felix and the rapper Junoflo.

Reviews

Mano of Idology (아이돌로지) covered the single in the magazine’s monthly singles column for November 2021. Of the title track he wrote that “over a sound that mixes hip-hop and trap and could by now be called the team’s signature, they grumble on without a pause, and then in the second half they take off as if to say, forget it, let’s just play, and finish”, and he closed on the four tracks together: “I think this is a record that a listener, and not only a fan, can enjoy well enough.”

NME’s Rhian Daly reviewed the single two days after release, opening with the question of how one of the most inventive groups in the genre keeps its creative streak intact while making something for the countdown to 25 December. The answer, she wrote, arrives as soon as the first track begins: the group “subvert expectations and do things, as always, their own way”. Of the title track she wrote that “it swaps happiness for Grinch-like scorn and traditional festive sounds for funky hip-hop grooves”. Of the closing English version she asked, “why not take the opportunity to remind the world just how great you are before it switches off for a few days?”, and finished: “That’s typical Stray Kids, though – always keeping us on our toes even when we think we’ve got them pegged.”

Among the tracks

The track both reviews put first is ‘Winter Falls’. Mano separated the record in two: “where the title track ‘Christmas EveL’ emphasised the team’s particular playfulness, the coupling track ‘24 to 25’ and the second title track ‘Winter Falls’ lean towards feeling and lyricism.” He called the second of those “the high point of this single”, for the lyrical acoustic guitar riff and melody that run through it. Daly read snow doing different work in the same song: where it illustrates the group’s dissatisfaction with the holiday on the title track, on ‘Winter Falls’ “it acts as something of a pathetic fallacy, its frozen descent onto Earth mirroring a relationship falling apart”.

‘24 to 25’ is the acoustic-guitar track. Daly wrote that it “was composed with fandom STAY in mind” and “softly dreams of spending the night where Christmas Eve melts into Christmas Day with loved ones”. The group’s own comment on the Bugs page points at the same place, saying the song carries the message of wanting to spend the hours from 24 December into the 25th together.