David Archuleta’s new Christmas album is certainly fun, but it does beg the question: does anyone really need to make a whole Christmas album?

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TOP 5

5. Let It Snow

Perhaps it’s a basic choice, but I’ve always loved “Let It Snow.” It’s such a fun carol. David Archuleta’s voice sounds great on the track, and I enjoy the production a lot. The bassline grooves, the guitars are smooth, and the horn section adds delightful punctuation. There are moments of jazz vibes, pure pop, and almost cartoonish motifs in the music. It feels straight out of a Christmas movie. “Let It Snow” is done all the time, so David needed to set his apart. He certainly did.

4. Santa’s On His Way Tonight

Adults singing about Santa is my favorite thing. I just love it. David sounds so excited about Santa coming to his house. There is probably the most in-your-face Christmas this album gets. The bells are jingling, the vibes are jolly, and it has a loud chorus and a quiet outro. Most importantly, though, is how joyful it is. David really captured the feeling of being a child and waiting for Santa Claus.

3. Wish at the Top of My List

“Wish at the Top of My List” is an original song, sung with the wonderful Jordin Sparks. It follows the classic Christmas song tragedy of the person you love not being home for Christmas. David and Jordin’s voices sound absolutely gorgeous together. Their harmonies on the chorus make the song. The vocal layering is generally very interesting on this track. It stood out immediately. It’s truly two fantastic singers in their element.

2. Nochebuena

“Nochebuena” is a lovely, bilingual track that celebrates David’s Latino heritage. The chorus is entirely in Spanish, and the track details a Christmas Eve when David is missing his ex-partner. “Nochebuena” is the Spanish word for Christmas Eve, but literally translates to “good night.” He uses that when he says “para mí no es una Nochebuena” (“for me, it’s not a good night”). I really like the wordplay. This track immediately stood out as I listened.

1. Grown-Up Christmas List

People don’t record “Grown-Up Christmas List” enough. It’s so pretty, and serves as such a beautiful way to showcase a strong singer’s voice. David masterfully navigates between the quiet moments and the parts that require more power. He sells the emotion easily. You can tell that he really feels it. “Grown-Up Christmas List” is the emotional center of Warm Me Up. While there are other ballads, this one touches on something that none of the other tracks do, and I really felt it in a way I didn’t feel the other tracks.

SONG BY SONG RATING

Warm Me Up (4/5)

Let It Snow (4/5)

Merry Christmas, Baby (4/5)

Santa’s On His Way Tonight (4/5)

Nochebuena (4.5/5)

Grown-Up Christmas List (4.5/5)

Happy Christmas (4/5)

Wish at the Top of My List (4.5/5)

Sleigh Ride (4/5)

Christmas in California (4/5)

Winter in the Air – 2025 Remaster (4/5)

Christmas Every Day – 2025 Remaster (4/5)

RGM RATING

(B)

Warm Me Up is a solid Christmas album. David Archuleta has a great voice, and some of the songs have interesting arrangements. It wasn’t bad or anything. It just really makes me wonder why it had to be an album.

There aren’t a lot of topics for Christmas songs, and you can cover all of them in six songs or less. And even if you are trying to repeat themes, which is a way to go, the theme that ends up repeated on most Christmas albums is “Christmas.” That’s what Warm Me Up feels like at times.

Maybe this is a me thing, but I like it when an album has a point of view and feel dissatisfied when it doesn’t, and very few Christmas albums have much of a unified vision in my experience. It’s easier to do that with an EP, or by just writing all of your own material and picking a theme. Hilary Duff made the right call with Holiday Things and made it an EP. I think that people should look at that before jumping straight into recording twelve tracks.

There was the recurring mention of Santa Claus, so I wonder if there was an intentional vision there. I did get a sense of an adult with a love for childhood nostalgia who still depends on the past to feel secure in the present, but that’s also a surprising amount of Christmas songs, and that certainly doesn’t fit all of these. I could be searching for something that’s not there, or it is there but not fully developed. Either way, it is a present theme that could have been expanded upon further.

I did enjoy a lot of individual songs. I never had a negative listening experience. It’s just when you put it all together on an album that you start to lose me. I love Christmas music, though, so I do think that this will be on my background Christmas music rotation, like when you need an album to inoffensively play while you’re talking with your family and wrapping presents. I love David Archuleta, and there are great recordings here. That being said, I’ll be listening to his older stuff far more than I’ll be listening to Warm Me Up.

Emma Platt