Introduction:
It is not a Christmas song, even though it might be the most honest one ever written.
For decades, Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December” has lived in the same space as twinkling lights, lonely highways, and quiet December nights. It gets labeled a holiday song because of when it shows up on the calendar and because it hurts in a way that feels familiar this time of year. But the truth is, you have probably been hearing it all wrong.
When Merle Haggard released the song in 1973 as the lead single from Merle Haggard’s Christmas Present, it immediately cut deeper than anything else on the radio. It went straight to number one, not because it was festive, but because it was brutally real. And while most people assume it came straight from Merle’s own financial struggles, the real inspiration actually started with a conversation between Merle and his longtime guitar player, Roy Nichols.
Nichols had a rough pattern in his personal life. His relationships had a habit of falling apart toward the end of the year. Divorce papers, heartbreak, and empty houses had a way of lining up with December. One day, Merle asked him how he was holding up with yet another relationship on the rocks. Nichols answered with a simple line that stuck like a nail in wood. “If we just make it through December.”
That sentence had nothing to do with money or Christmas trees. It was about surviving long enough to believe things might get better on the other side of the calendar. Merle heard it, turned it over in his mind, and did what only the greatest songwriters can do. He took a deeply personal moment and transformed it into something universal.
Instead of writing about divorce, Merle wrote about a man laid off from his factory job at the worst possible time. He wrote about pride, shame, and the quiet heartbreak of knowing your kid does not understand why Santa is coming up short this year. Those lyrics hit because they feel lived in, not imagined.
Merle knew that feeling. His father died when he was just nine years old. He grew up poor in Oildale, California, watching his mother struggle to keep food on the table. Before his music saved him, Merle spent time in prison and knew firsthand what it meant to feel trapped by circumstance. So even if the story was sparked by Roy Nichols, the emotion came straight from Merle’s bones.
That is why the song works year after year. It is not about Christmas. It is about endurance. It is about the quiet hope that if you can just survive this rough stretch, something better might be waiting. December just happens to be the month where everything feels heavier. Bills stack up. Expectations get louder. And people who are barely hanging on feel it the most.
Over the years, artists like Alan Jackson, Marty Robbins, Faron Young, the Pistol Annies, and Cody Johnson have all covered the song. They have all done it justice in their own way. But none of them can touch the way Merle delivers it. His voice does not ask for sympathy. It just tells the truth and lets you sit with it.
That honesty is why the song still connects generations later. Even people who have never worked a factory job or missed a paycheck know what it feels like to stare down a hard month and whisper that same line to themselves. If we just make it through December.
So the next time you hear it, do not file it away as a sad Christmas song. Hear it for what it really is. A working man’s prayer. A songwriter’s gift. And a reminder that country music at its best does not sugarcoat life. It just tells it straight and trusts you to feel the rest.