--- title: Text Me Merry Christmas Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser description: Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser sing original a capella tune "Text Me Merry Christmas." canonical: https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-18T15:15:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:41.069Z og:title: Text Me Merry Christmas Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser og:description: Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser sing original a capella tune "Text Me Merry Christmas." og:url: https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54af3e0e7b865d6a/6987694c3c16390500450066/kristen-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4200 og:image:height: 2363 og:image:alt: "The Judge" - Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Text Me Merry Christmas Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser twitter:description: Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser sing original a capella tune "Text Me Merry Christmas." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54af3e0e7b865d6a/6987694c3c16390500450066/kristen-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Listen to Kristen Bell's Christmas Song for the Selfie Generation > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=d8649b5c-7396-48b7-bbd5-af0522ac2888&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 18, 2014 3:15 PM UTC  Actress Kristen Bell arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere of 'The Judge' at AMPAS Samuel Goldwyn Theater on October 1, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. Actress Kristen Bell arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere of 'The Judge' at AMPAS Samuel Goldwyn Theater on October 1, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. FilmMagic/Getty Images  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 18, 2014 3:15 PM UTC This holiday season, let your loved ones know you care by going through the tremendous effort of selecting the right emoji for a text message. So says Kristen Bell in a newly released holiday song, “Text Me Merry Christmas,” recorded with a capella group Straight No Chaser. The song pokes fun — very lightly, perhaps _too_ lightly — at the increasing informality of communication, where a text message today provides a measly substitute for the in-person visits of yore. The lyrics (“I’ll go ‘neath the mistletoe and pretend my screen is you”) are a very intentional far cry from romantic songs of Christmases past, in which lovers kissed using the old-fashioned technology of lips and facial muscles. Bell has proven her musical talents before, in projects like [_Frozen_](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/02/watch-kristen-bell-idina-menzel-and-others-inside-the-frozen-studios/)and a Funny or Die [parody video](http://time.com/3030481/kristin-bell-mary-poppins-funny-or-die/) in which she played the part of Mary Poppins. And Straight No Chaser launched its career in the late ‘90s with a [performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8) of “12 Days of Christmas,” which led to a five-album record deal. It may be out of fashion to lament the adverse effects of technology. But it’s not hard to imagine that a day will come when we yearn for the close and personal touch of a winking emoji. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/"},"headline":"Listen to Kristen Bell's Christmas Song for the Selfie Generation","datePublished":"2014-11-18T15:15:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:41.069Z","description":"“I’ll be right here waiting for my pants to start vibrating”","url":"https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Living","Music","christmas","communication","Kristen Bell"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54af3e0e7b865d6a/6987694c3c16390500450066/kristen-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54af3e0e7b865d6a/6987694c3c16390500450066/kristen-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"The Judge\" - Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals","caption":"\"The Judge\" - Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals","creditText":"FilmMagic/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3591987/text-me-merry-christmas-kristen-bell-straight-no-chaser/","name":"Listen to Kristen Bell's Christmas Song for the Selfie Generation"}}]}] ```