Rob Thomas is a big Christmas fan, as you might assume from his new holiday album Something About Christmas Time. But as a kid, he says he “hated” Christmas, not because of the holiday itself, but because of the weather, which wasn’t exactly “Christmassy.”
Rob lived in South Carolina as a small child and then moved to Florida at age 10.
“I mean, I hated it, because I started off in South Carolina where it’s a little more wintery and…you get some snow,” he tells ABC Audio.
“So for years and years, when I was young, we would all go to South Carolina for Christmas, and it always kinda still felt a little Christmassy,” he continues. “But then, when my grandparents passed away and we didn’t really have anybody to go see — just spending Christmas in Florida…people get excited because, you know, you needed a coat. Like, ‘Oh, I need to wear a coat. It feels like Christmas!'”
But since Rob has lived in the New York area for over 20 years, he now gets more snow that he can handle, and says “all my great [Christmas] memories are of New York.”
Rob says he’d love to be able to celebrate in Manhattan again like he did in the before times: December of 2019.
“It was one of our favorite Christmases of all time,” he tells ABC Audio. “My wife and her mom and I did the full traditional [thing]. We went to the Rockettes and then we went to The Plaza and had a really nice dinner there…and it just felt very ‘New York Christmas,’ for lack of a better term.”
“I would love something like that,” he admits. “I’m just not sure of my [comfort] factor right now, still, just being out and about.”
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