![]() Christmas hit-making has more rules, more boxes to check off, than rest-of-the-year hit-making. It’s jolly and Christmas-positive (depressing Christmas songs are thorny things, best left to Joni Mitchell and Irving Berlin). Petty’s song follows many of the rules laid out by holiday songwriters over the years: It mentions things like presents and mistletoe. Some, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ newly perennial “ Christmas All Over Again,” released in 1992, have taken decades to gain any traction. Others, like Christian group NewSong’s tearjerker-turned-novel-turned-TV-movie “The Christmas Shoes,” flamed out early. Some recent songs that showed promise, like Faith Hill’s “ Where Are You Christmas?” or Justin Bieber’s “ Mistletoe,” couldn’t survive their singers’ waning popularity. No one, not even such superstars as Taylor Swift, Coldplay or Beyoncé, has managed to turn a temporary seasonal hit into an evergreen since Carey’s tune. There hasn’t been an enduring holiday song released in the 20 years since. ![]() “Christmas in Hollis” was originally released in 1987, during a 10-year span that produced two other classics, Wham’s “ Last Christmas” (1984) and Mariah Carey’s “ All I Want for Christmas Is You” (1994). Run-D.M.C.’s “ Christmas in Hollis” is a modern holiday standard, making McDaniels a member of a vanishingly small club: Most lyricists of classic Christmas songs are dead. ![]() ![]() “I can’t be going shopping till after Christmas.” “I’m scared to go to the mall, because every five steps somebody’s screaming, ‘It’s Christmastime in Hollis, Queens!’ Kids, grandmothers, it’s crazy,” McDaniels says. This time of year, Run-D.M.C.’s Darryl McDaniels doesn’t like to leave the house.
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