Hanson’s New Christmas Video Will Make You Feel Oh-So Festive & Nostalgic

Earlier this month, the three mayors of MMMBop-ville promised a new music video, and holy egg nog, did they make good on their word. On Thursday, Entertainment Weekly shared Hanson's music video for “Finally It’s Christmas,” the title track off the brothers' second Xmas record. The trio released a lyric video for the song earlier this month, but only after they tweeted that there was another video just around the corner. As they put it, “This is just a warm up for the official music video coming later this month!” And on the final day of November, it arrived in all of its Beanie Baby-tastic glory.

Now, how does a band possibly follow up a lyric video about a roller-skating Santa Claus who meets up with some other roller-skating Santa Clauses? The band makes a music video where they travel to different decades and perform the tune, that’s how. In the clip for “Finally It’s Christmas,” Isaac Hanson, Taylor Hanson, and Zac Hanson hang out in a living room and watch an excerpt from the Christmas special they did back in 1997 for ABC.

However, when ’97 era Taylor introduces Hanson's holiday extravaganza, the new music video doesn’t cut to the trio’s version of “Merry Christmas Baby” like the ABC special did. This time around (har har har), the guys of Hanson perform “Finally It’s Christmas," hang out in different decades, and maybe exist inside a VR headset? You can check it out here.

First, the band sings on a present-day couch. Then, they are on the stage of a very The Ed Sullivan Show-esque program. Then, Taylor is in a room that’s stocked with all of the quintessentially ’80s props. Next, Isaac is in a very ’70s living room that would fit right in on Mindhunter. Then, Zac pops up in a grungy ’90s lair where he plays the drums next to a Halo the angel bear Beanie Baby. In the last scene, a woman watches Hanson through what appears to be a VR headset. When she sets the device down, the video is over. It’s the final curtain of the future.

The band was more or less inspired by the Ghost of Christmas Past, but in a non-Scroogey way. In October, Taylor told EW,

"Christmas is sort of a time capsule, so we’ve created this video where we sort of look at it through the idea of old Christmas specials. We did that Christmas special 20 years ago with ABC, so we’re kind of pivoting off from that point. We sort of take you through [the past] and a little today, performing music like it’s from a Christmas special, and imagining what each of those eras looked like celebrating Christmas. It’s like time travel.”

As you drink in this charming nostalgia-filled clip, you may notice that unlike the lyric video that was released for the same song, there is nary a roller-skating Father Christmas to be found. The lyric video wasn’t a preview for what was to come; it is its own thing. Y’all, Hanson gave us not one, but two separate videos for “Finally It’s Christmas.”

On Oct. 27, 2017, two decades after Snowed In hit the physical record store shelves, Hanson released their second Christmas album. Once again, they made good on their promise. Finally It’s Christmas includes original Xmas jams, as well as some covers of classics. If you’ve ever thought, “I’d love to hear Hanson cover Mariah Carey’s most iconic Christmas song,” then you are one lucky jingle bell-wearing duck: Zac, Taylor, and Isaac tackle “All I Want For Christmas Is You” on their new holiday album.

The music video for “Finally It’s Christmas” is jolly. It's festive. It's nostalgic. It's cute. It has a twist ending. What more could you ask for? It’s the time-traveling holiday adventure starring the Hanson brothers you never knew you needed.