Walker Hayes unveils early holiday gift: 'Fancy Like Christmas'

Monument Records hosted an early holiday party to introduce new Christmas music from artists Caitlyn Smith, Alex Hall and Tigirlily Gold.

But at the end of an acoustic set by the musicians, Monument General Manager Katie McCartney told party-goers she had a special gift and introduced Walker Hayes, who played the long-awaited Christmas version of his mega hit "Fancy Like."

Hayes took a seat with his guitar and told the crowd his manager Robert Carlton had called him recently saying Katie had been bugging them for like two years for a Christmas version of the song that went six-times platinum and has been streamed more than 800 million times.

"At first I was like 'nah, that's super cheesy'" Hayes said. "And then one day I was kinda bored, so we wrote this song a few days ago and it is a smash. It's funny to revisit this song. It's hard to sing new words to it. But I'm super excited about this."

"Fancy Like Christmas" elicited laughter and cheers from the crowd as Hayes sang:

"Yeah we fancy like Christmas 'round a fake treeNutcracker on the mantle with a candy cane candleGet your egg nog with your fruitcakeGo Jesus, it's ya birthday!"

While the final recorded version of the song isn't finished yet — and Hayes admitted he hadn't even heard it, but he knows it will have bells on it — McCartney says the song should be available in the next few weeks.

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Monument artists Smith, Hall and Tigirlily Gold are also releasing Christmas music that will be available for anyone who likes to kick off their holiday festivities before Halloween.

Hall told the crowd his childhood memories of Christmas inspired this song.

"I wrote a Christmas song for the first time by myself for this project," he said. "I have always loved Christmas. I started thinking about what I wanted to write. I have a two-year-old at home and I kinda fell out of the Christmas magic as I became an adult as a lot of us do because the magic is in the child-like spirit of it all. I started thinking about that and as an adult I am re-getting the magic. So I wrote a song about finding that magic as an adult."

A very pregnant Smith reassured the crowd that her due date isn't for another 30 days, "So we won't be having this baby tonight," she said, laughing.

Sister-duo Tigirlily Gold, fresh off their performance on "Today," joked about the career milestone their family was most impressed with, and it wasn't playing on national television.

Krista Slaubaugh said "We have a song in a Hallmark movie this year and I think to my grandma and my mom, that's like the coolest thing we could ever do and I don't think anything could ever top that. The movie is called 'Where Are You Christmas' and we released a version of the song "Where Are You Christmas" a few years ago."

Smith's original song "Snow Day," along with her version of "O Holy Night" are out now. Hall's original "Reason to Believe" and his cover of "Please Come Home for Christmas," will be out Nov. 3 and Tigirlily Gold's "Falala Falling" is out Oct. 27.

Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at mhurt@tennessean.com or on X @HurtMelonee.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Walker Hayes unveils Christmas version of hit 'Fancy Like'