Steve Perry cooks up cherished Christmas memories with holiday album ‘The Season’

Steve Perry age 8, courtesy Steve Perry; Steve Perry 2021; Myriam Santos

This Christmas has brought us the gift of Steve Perry‘s first holiday album, The Season. He says the songs on it will transport you emotionally to past Christmases — because that’s exactly what happened to him while he was recording it.

Perry tells ABC Audio that while recording “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” for the album, he suddenly had a vision of being in his grandmother’s house during the holidays.

“As I was singing it, I [could] see…her yellow kitchen tile. I could see her in the kitchen,” Perry recalls. “…I’m looking through the door jamb where I used to hang the mistletoe…into the living room, to this massive tree she used to put up.”

After shaking off the vision, Perry says, “I went, ‘Wow, that was pretty weird.’ I emotionally was right there, standing in front of that door, looking at that tree.”  He credits the spooky experience to “the power” of these “timeless” holiday songs.

The other thing that transports Perry to past Christmases is cooking the dishes his grandmother and mother used to make.

“Deviled eggs have to be there for Christmas. But the most important thing is the stuffing,” he shares. “The stuffing was my grandmother’s recipe and I make it from memory, just watching her, because I never wrote it down. And I’ll tell you, the stuffing is the secret to make it feel like holidays to me.”

And while he’ll skip roasting a turkey in favor of turkey burgers, Perry explains, “Cooking is one of the things I love to do during the holidays, because it’s kind of like music, y’know? It’s another way to connect.”

“I mean, I can get pretty verklempt cooking,” he says, using the Yiddish expression for “overcome with emotion.” “Because it just throws me back to watching them cook for me.”

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