Saskatoon artist captures extreme highs and lows of holidays with new Christmas album

The holiday lights and decorations are strewn everywhere, a dog is sniffing around and an exhausted blond woman is lying on the floor with her hands behind her head.

The image Saskatoon singer Elly Thorn captures in that moment is one of many realistic and cheeky vignettes of the collective chaos that comes with Christmas planning, particularly for parents, in a new music video for her song Am I The Only One.

Other scenes include her children hopping out of a dirty van, a panicked mid-sleep revelation that she's forgotten to get gifts for her children's teachers and her shoulders shrinking in as she hauls bags of gifts down the street.

The video was not too dissimilar from Thorn's life.

She had only two days to put the video together, meaning the dirty van wasn't an intentional choice — her van was just dirty at the time.

That dog? It's her pet, and it pooped indoors during filming.

Thorn has been immersed in singing Christmas songs since January 2019. It was around that time Thorn was invited to perform as a vocal soloist for a Christmas-themed show with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra.

Before the big event on Dec. 7, Thorn started writing original songs like "Am I The Only One," but she did not want to forget that the holidays hold many experiences for people — some good and some bad.

"I think that the joy and the excitement can be really high," Thorn said of the winter holidays.

"But I think also the loneliness and the emptiness and the struggle, it can be extra low," Thorn said on CBC Radio's Saskatchewan Weekend.

Thorn said holidays can be exciting and filled with joy but there is also the collective chaos of it all. Stressors like relationships, loss and family illness can put a damper on the holiday spirit, she said. 

The concert is a fantasy turned reality. Thorn said she remembers watching the SSO perform last year. 

"Can you imagine the Saskatoon symphony playing your original music," she asked her husband.

She'll perform with the SSO on Saturday at the Sid Buckwold Theatre, inside of TCU Place in Saskatoon. Jazz trumpeter Dean McNeill is another featured artist at the event.