"Sabrina Carpenter: A Nonsense Christmas" - Review

“Sabrina Carpenter: A Nonsense Christmas” - Review

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Sabrina Carpenter in 2024.  She is nominated for a best new artist Grammy for her new album “Short ‘N Sweet,” but the irony of that statement is that she’s actually been putting out studio albums since 2015.  Apparently, an artist can be a “new artist” from the Grammy perspective as long as the recently analyzed year was the first one in which an artist has a breakthrough into mainstream success.

Sabrina’s Christmas special – “A Nonsense Christmas” on Netflix – did not disappoint.  The special was short and sweet (pun intended), coming in at under an hour, and is full of ALL THE THINGS that Sabrina has become so well known for during her breakout year.  Specifically, there was plenty of camp, ad-libbing, coquettish charm, sexy little outfits, special guest artists, and double-entendre lyrics.  Her original Christmas songs were lively and creative, which was not surprising.

What was surprising, especially to viewers such as myself who are only tangentially aware of her earlier work in both singing and acting on the Disney Channel, was her impressive vocal range and impeccable comedic timing in the vignettes that were interspersed with the music. Sabrina does hit a higher octave periodically in her latest two albums, the aforementioned ‘Short ‘N Sweet” and its noteworthy predecessor “Emails I Can’t Send,” but those moments are few and far between.  Instead of focusing on her singing ability, her current “brand” leans into the young-and-horny vibe that she’s adopted – tongue-in-cheek lyrics that often have double meanings, skimpy but feminine attire, and a sense of humor about life and about herself.

One of the original songs, which she sang right at the beginning of the show after her monologue, is aptly titled “A Nonsense Christmas” and applies brand new lyrics to her viral hit “Nonsense” from the “Emails I Can’t Send” album.  Among the many cleverly flirtatious lyrical stylings:

I think you like my stocking better on the floor

Boy I been a bad girl, I guess I’m getting coal

Oh it feels so good, I need that Charles Dickens

You’ll be Santa Claus and I’ll be Missus

Take you for a ride, I’ll be your Vixen

The original “Nonsense” track is about stumbling on your words when you meet a crush and are nervous.  In the Christmas version, Sabrina changed “Baby my tongue goes numb, it sounds like ble ble ble ble” to “Baby my tongue goes numb, it sounds like Ho Ho Ho Ho.”  She laughs right after singing this line, as she does after one of the silly lines in her summer hit, “Espresso.” One of the qualities that she’s known for is having the confidence to be unapologetically herself.  The girl knows how to do a holiday special that’s authentic to her personal brand and great fun for the audience.

Sabrina opened for Taylor Swift on her Eras tour earlier this year, and her approach to promoting her music and herself has drawn well-deserved parallels to Swift for her thoughtful lyrics and rapport with fans.  Sabrina, from all that I have heard, is quite frankly a much better singer than Swift. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a shift to more vocally challenging productions from Sabrina in the years to come, because she’s proving to be a master of reinvention – just like her contemporary idol, and friend, Taylor.

Maybe one day she’ll have an Eras tour of her own, but I digress.  For now, the five-foot tall phenomenon that is Sabrina Carpenter happens to be focused more on unique lyrics, genre-crossing instrumental vibes, and her hilariously horny persona as she continues on her “Short ‘N Sweet” album tour.  From all of the reviews that I’ve read and the in-person experience of one of the students I tutor who saw the show live in Austin, the show that she puts on in concert is just as fun, flirty, and eccentric as “A Nonsense Christmas.”

NOTE: Sabrina does “clean it up a bit” for this Netflix special, which she hilariously makes a reference to by breaking the 4th wall and saying that it’s TV-14 so she can only say f*** 3 times.  Then, she proceeds to say the word one more time so that she ends up with only 1 left. As long as your family doesn’t mind a small bit of profanity and some double-meaning lyrics that most kids wouldn’t understand anyway, “Sabrina Carpenter: A Nonsense Christmas” would be a great watch or background entertainment for family holiday gatherings.

Get a little taste [pun intended, since one of her hits from her new album is the song “Taste”] of “A Nonsense Christmas” by clicking on this lyric video for the titular theme song:

https://youtu.be/t3zqFusFXis?si=ymXElP60e-Uc0u6H

Happy Holidays to all!

Kira