Forrest Frank and Jake Lawson, "This Is What Christmas Feels Like"
Posted January 19, 2026
By josiahscott2023,
This Is What Christmas was released on 5 December of this 2025, becoming Lawson's first Christmas album, Frank's second Christmas album (his first being A Merry Lofi Christmas in 2023), and both of their's first collaborative studio album.
In comparison with Frank’s later studio work, particularly Child of God (2024), and its sequel, Child of God II (2025), the album demonstrates a significant step up in element variation, exhibiting the use of stringed instruments and other background sound effects (a good example of the latter would be on the track "Christmas Morning"). This is a strength, considering the formulaic nature of Frank’s later work.
A weakness of the album is its length. It only contains nine tracks, one of which is an interlude. It also only runs for a short twenty-two minutes, making it hardly the length of an extended play.
I also feel that the addition of the track "Her" was overly redundant. This song marks the fifth collaborative remix of the song that Lawson has released since November. Furthermore, it doesn’t appear to directly correlate with the overall theme of the album, not being explicitly Christmas-themed. In addition to this track, there are other factors, such as adding an interlude to the second-to-last track of the album, or having a track transition in the middle of a song, that disrupt the album’s flow.
While there are certainly flaws with the album, I believe that the use of differing elements and creativity makes this a quality step forward. The album is a stellar attempt with spectacularly mature production, and I am hopeful that this becomes a new standard for Frank and Lawson.
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