You make it feel like Christmas

"Pop singers thanklessly tasked with recording a Christmas album must inevitably make a Faustian choice between two principal approaches: remain faithful to the traditional Yuletide fare in all its anachronisms or apply a more contemporary sound to the genre. Gwen Stefani-whose urban-leaning dance-pop has yielded to more generic pop-rock in recent years-opts for the former on You Make It Feel Like Christmas".

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"... the record is surprisingly heavy on new material for a holiday album. Occasionally, this means Stefani veers into territory that doesn't feel strictly seasonal: "When I Was a Little Girl" plays like a diary entry, not a memory of Christmases past, "My Gift Is You" is a love song bearing the faintest hint of mistletoe, and "Never Kissed Anyone with Blue Eyes" has only a tangential relationship with Christmas. They don't seem out of place, since they're given the same bells and whistles as "Let It Snow" and "White Christmas," but they also diminish the album, making it seem smaller than the season. Still, the moments that work have a coquettish charm that is appealing, which is reason enough to warrant a listen".

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