🎶 Christmas in the Quiet: The Holiday Song for the Empty Chair
- Waymon Hudson
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Holiday music is everywhere. Big choruses, sleigh bells, everybody clinking glasses in perfect harmony.
But there are some years when the holidays feel… different.
Some years the room stays still.
Some years there’s an empty chair at the table.
Some years you’re doing everything “right” and still carrying a quiet ache no one can see.
“Christmas in the Quiet” came from that kind of December.
It’s not a song about jingle bells and happy endings.
It’s a song about the Christmas you spend with a memory.
The Line That Opened the Door
The song started with the image that wouldn’t leave me alone:
“The lights are on, but the room stays still... A quiet house with a winter chill…”
That’s the moment when you realize the season has arrived, but your heart hasn’t caught up.
Then there’s the detail that gutted me most:
“Your stocking hangs alone like a quiet stare... Like empty hopes in empty prayers.”
That’s the whole song, right there: the way love and grief show up in objects. A stocking, a chair, a tradition you’re trying to keep alive even though the person is gone.
It could be a breakup.
It could be a death.
It could be the loss of a life you thought you’d have.
The song never tells you which one it is on purpose... because the feeling is the same: the season goes on, and you’re still staring at what’s missing.
A Melody That Haunts the Room
Before any lyrics, the first thing I wrote for this song was the hummed melody that opens it.
The track begins with just my voice, quietly humming the main theme before I ever sing a word. It’s soft, close, almost like someone humming to themselves in an empty room.
Then, as the song unfolds, the strings keep repeating that little melody in different ways—swelling under the verses, echoing after the choruses, brushing past in the bridge.
That was intentional.
I wanted the music to feel like memory:
the way a scent, a song, or a piece of décor can suddenly pull you back to a moment you thought you’d moved past.
So the orchestra becomes this ghostly echo, a whisper of the opening hum that keeps reappearing... just like grief does throughout the season. You think you’re okay, and then a small detail hits you, and there it is again.
Writing a Christmas Song Through Silence
Like the rest of this album, I recorded “Christmas in the Quiet” after losing my hearing.
I didn’t hear the hum, the strings, or the piano the way most people do. I felt them:
The hum vibrated in my face and throat.
The strings sat like a weight in my chest.
The swell of the arrangement was something my body rode more than my ears.
Christmas is already a season of quiet moments: late-night lights, snow outside, the hush after everyone goes to bed. Experiencing that through deafness layered a whole new meaning onto the word “silent.”
It’s not just “Silent Night.” It’s silent everything.
So this song became a way to take that silence and ask:
What if we told the truth about what some holidays really feel like?
The Heart of the Song: The Warmest Season, the Coldest Room
The chorus holds the line that everything else spins around:
“It’s the warmest season… but the coldest room. I still reach for you, like you might reach back soon.”
That contrast is the whole emotional core: the world is lit up, but inside, you’re freezing.
By the second chorus, the grief has sharpened:
“Every ornament cracks like it’s missing you too…”
The objects around you become accomplices. The tree, the garland, the music—all of it becomes a mirror reflecting back what you’ve lost.
In the bridge, the song stops pretending it will be an easy fix:
“Maybe someday I’ll stop waiting. For footsteps I know won’t walk in…”
There’s no fake resolution. No “but I’m fine now!” button. Just the honest, shaky hope that one day it might hurt less... even if today is not that day.
The Ghost in the Melody
One of my favorite parts of the song isn’t even a lyric. It’s that humming line returning in the arrangement.
By the time we hit the final chorus, the strings are carrying that melody like a ghost moving through the room. It’s not front and center, but it’s always there, wrapped around the vocal:
“Still the warmest season… still the coldest room. I keep stoking this fire like it’ll pull you back soon…”
To me, that’s what real grief feels like during the holidays: you keep tending to the fire, even when you know it can’t bring someone back. You still cook the recipe, hang the stocking, light the candle.
The arrangement remembers, the way you do.
The melody never quite leaves.
Why This Song Matters to Me
I’ve written dance tracks, breakup anthems, sexy songs, big pop moments.
But “Christmas in the Quiet” is something different.
It’s the song where I didn’t try to cheer anyone up.
I just tried to sit beside them.
It’s for the person who’s scrolling past endless “festive fun!” posts while quietly hurting.
For the family that keeps setting out an extra plate.
For the person who left a relationship, or a religion, or a life— and now feels that absence louder in December.
If that’s you: this song is a hand on your shoulder.
You’re not broken for feeling this way.
You’re not alone in the quiet.
Christmas in the Quiet: If You Need This HolidaySong This Year…
“Christmas in the Quiet” is a holiday song meant to be felt in the soft spaces... late at night, tree lights on, room a little too still.
If you’re spending this holiday season missing someone, grieving something, or just feeling out of sync with the cheer around you…
I hope this song keeps you company.
🎄 Pre-save “Christmas in the Quiet” now so it lands in your library the moment it drops.
And if you want more behind-the-music stories from Through My Skin, plus early listens and messy, honest essays…
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More stories — and more music — are coming.
Even in the quiet.
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