For everyone who has skipped right on past witches and ghosts, is looking beyond the turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and already has peppermint, tinsel and pine on the brain, Jon and Valerie Guerra will fill that happy, Christmas-ready part of your heart. Their new single, “Beginning to Feel Like Christmas,” is a refreshing change from the same “Jingle Bells” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside” covers you hear in the holiday season. The track, off their new album It’s Almost Christmas, touches on the weird little signs that say it’s Christmas time in the city.

For Jon and Valerie, writing Christmas songs has become a tradition that started out of need. In November 2011, when they were a newlywed couple living in a small Chicago apartment with no disposable income (or income at all, really) to buy presents for family and friends, these two starving artists recorded Christmas songs in their home studio, and posted them online hoping to raise money for Christmas gifts. Receiving an unexpectedly positive response from their first recordings, Jon and Valerie have continued to record Christmas songs, until it finally seem natural to string them together to create an album, featuring some original tracks as well as covers of classic songs. It’s Almost Christmas also features mash-ups of holiday songs, such as “The Way You Look Tonight” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

“Beginning to Feel Like Christmas” is one of the original tracks off the album. The track starts off as any Christmas track should– full of cheer. The lyrics are funny, and all too true: “I see Christmas trees displayed at Macy’s/I’ll take a double mocha with whip” and “we see a guy on a bike/his beard is all full of ice/ he’s got a sweater with deer/ironic and full of cheer.” Jon Guerra references these lines, saying,”You know it’s Christmas in Chicago when the cab drivers give you the right of way, the irony of the hipster cyclist’s festive wear is at 100%, and I all of the sudden, without warning, crave a venti mocha. This song literally mentions all of that.” The melody is fun, and will definitely bring a smile to your face.

Jon Guerra says that today people focus on how “commercialized” Christmas is, but he doesn’t see that as the case. Christmas still has an aura of magic around it, and people continue to look forward to the good and bad that comes with the Christmas season. Stores are packed with frantic shoppers trying to find that perfect gift, but families still come together, sit by the tree and sing songs after having a few glasses of eggnog. Jon and Valerie’s new song is likely to find its way into your Christmas tradition.