Although Britney Spears’ still-underrated Christmas classic, “My Only Wish (This Year),” has gotten some clout of late by being played in the rather odious gay Xmas rom-com, Single All the Way, it’s a track that has still never managed to usurp the reigning “supreme,” Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Which feels rife for having parentheses before and after “Is You” in the same spirit of “My Only Wish (This Year).” But then, maybe the masses just can’t get on board with grammatical playfulness and this has been part of the problem with making “My Only Wish (This Year)” a true long-term success. Certainly not helped by having the likes of Meghan Trainor sing a cover of it.
And, of course, the content of the song itself isn’t expressing anything all that different from what Mariah was saying, with Britney rephrasing it as, “I know exactly what I want this year/Santa, can you hear me?/I want my baby, baby/I want someone to love me/Someone to hold.” Although Spears uses Santa as the conduit for her request rather than “dialing direct” (as Cher in Mermaids would say) to a specific person, the sentiment about wanting to be with that someone “special” remains, rendered decidedly American as a concept in terms of wanting to possess a person like an object.
Still eighteen at the time of recording the song in 2000, Spears, who co-wrote it with Brian Kierulf and Josh Schwartz (more known for creating The O.C. than his lyrical contributions to this song), makes her lover sound like a dog when she adds, “He’ll be all my own in a big red bow.” This, too, might have been a detriment to making “My Only Wish (This Year)” an enduring classic in the same vein as Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in that the latter is supposed to have a more “adult” slant than the all-out teen pop Spears embraced for her own original Christmas composition. Treating Santa as though he’s God, which makes sense considering Spears’s Southern Christian roots, she seems to regard her Christmas list–or “wish”–as more of a prayer when she sweetly sings, “Santa, can you hear me?/I have been so good this year/And all I want is one thing:/Tell me my true love is near/He’s all I want, just for me.”
Appearing on Platinum Christmas, a compilation that amounted to a showcase for Jive Records, Spears’ song was the furthest she would ever take it with “Christmas music.” Unlike her peer, Christina Aguilera, who came in hard that same year with My Kind of Christmas, plus an additional cover of “Silent Night” just for Platinum Christmas. Instead, Spears has adopted the same approach as her most beloved mentor, Madonna, in terms of only dipping her toe into the Christmas realm, never to fully submerge herself in it with a complete album. The difference with Madonna, of course, is that “Santa Baby” was a cover she managed to make just as much her own as Eartha Kitt’s. If Spears ever decided to do her own version of “Santa Baby” as well, Madonna would also have some major competition in keeping the song as most commonly associated with her.
But “Santa Baby” would have been more suited to the vamp of Britney’s post-Oops!…I Did It Again era. One in which, appropriately, she wasn’t quite as amenable to recording Christmas songs anymore. That, evidently, was reserved for her “cutesy,” “still that innocent” period. Hence, sounding like a little girl when she sings to Santa, “Christmas Eve, I just can’t sleep/Would I be wrong for taking a peek?” Of course, even that line is imbued with the Lolita touch, so many “little girls” knowing exactly what they’re doing when they make their innuendos. Incidentally, Spears did once have a very famous Lolita photo session in a schoolgirl skirt long before she ever got into one for the “…Baby One More Time” video.
Elsewhere, Spears plays the virgin/whore card to perfection with her cooing, “‘Cause I heard that you’re coming to town/Santa, can you hear me?/I really hope that you’re on your way/With something special for me in your sleigh.” Why does it suddenly sound like she’s hoping Santa is going to careen down the chimney with a hard dick? Is he secretly the one she wishes to find waiting for her underneath the Christmas tree, prostrate and fully nude with that aforementioned red bow around him? Because yes, a Santa fetish is an entire porn genre (one that Lauren Graham as Sue in Bad Santa is probably all too aware of). Spears continues to implore, “Oh, please make my wish come true/Santa, can you hear me?/I want my baby, baby/I want someone to love me/Someone to hold.” A sentiment that isn’t exactly “romantic,” so much as a sign of the urgent desperation that befalls so many people who find themselves “alone” during the holiday season…conveniently forgetting that we’re all alone in our own head no matter what.
Continuing to play up that form of innocence that borders quite closely to being “naughty,” Spears reminds again, “Santa, can you hear me?/I have been so good this year/And all I want is one thing/Tell me my true love is near/He’s all I want, just for me/Underneath my Christmas tree/I’ll be waiting here, Santa/That’s my only wish this year.” Surely, if you were the pedophilic old man that is Santa, you’d take that as a literal written invitation to show up and fulfill Spears’ wish very personally.
To complete the codependent earnestness of it all, Spears has no shame in adding, “I hope my letter reaches you in time, oh yeah/Bring me love I can call all mine, oh yeah yeah/‘Cause I have been so good, so good this year/Can’t be alone under the mistletoe.” But honestly, would it really be all that bad to be alone under the mistletoe this year? What with everyone being too diseased to kiss anyway. Regardless, that doesn’t mean this increasingly retro Xmas ditty shouldn’t be vindicated for not only creating the perfect blend of ingenue and coquette, but also for serving as a portal back into a time when we, as a culture, really were that innocent. Or at least not quite as jaded.
