Dan + Shay have a holiday hit on their hands with "Pick Out a Christmas Tree." The song first came out in 2022, but it's also included on Dan + Shay's new holiday album, It's Officially Christmas: The Double Album.
Dan Smyers says the song was inspired by his and partner Shay Mooney's real-life experiences. "I know in both mine and Shay's family, picking out a Christmas tree is a huge part of the holiday tradition. Always has been, always will be," he says.
"We wanted to be able to have a soundtrack for whenever they go pick out a Christmas tree, whether it's at a store down the street, whether it's at a Christmas tree farm or whether it's in their backyard," Dan adds. "This is the song that they need to crank up."
"Pick Out a Christmas Tree" is far from the duo's only holiday song -- they've been releasing them on and off since 2014, but It's Officially Christmas is their first-ever holiday album. As Shay explains, it's been a very long time coming, which is why it has 21 tracks on it.
"You know, our fans have been begging for this for the last 10 years. And I feel like every year we let them down. We'd tease a little bit of, 'Maybe this will be the year,' but we didn't have it done," says Shay.
"And this past year we had a random snowfall in Nashville in January and we were kind of inspired," he continues. "And we started writing all these songs ... it was very ambitious of us. We ended up putting together a double album. ... It's awesome to have a massive collection of songs finally together that our fans can kind of consume all at once."