With Home For The Holidays, The KaRs (The Kane and Regan show) have created a holiday album with a brilliant mix of English, Te Reo, and sometimes other languages. With 18 tracks it is long but you don’t notice as you get lost in the tracks.

The first track Christmas Boogie is a fun start to the album about having a hangi and being with family at Christmas. There is a part where they read out some funny Christmas cracker jokes amongst the song (I won’t ruin them for you) and it has a great saxophone solo.

Greetings is not a song, but it is people from around Aotearoa sharing with Kane and Regan how to say Merry Christmas in their home language. It features Te Reo, Samoan, Spanish, Japanese, Indian, and Mandarin. This leads into We Wish You A Merry Christmas which starts with the first line sung by a child before various verses sung in different languages mentioned in Greetings. It ends with the child singing again and saying merry Christmas everyone. The combination of these two songs is a beautiful way of sharing the different cultures and nationalities that call Aotearoa home. And as a bonus you get to learn how to say Merry Christmas in different ways too.

Home For The Holidays is a Te Reo and English song about spending the holidays with your whanau and friends (and Pohutukawa trees). It gets emotional in parts and hits you in the feels with the lyrics ‘To those that have passed, we hold you so dear, you’re in our heart even though you’re no longer here’.

Chances are if you have been in any meeting, classroom, or event in Aotearoa you have heard this song said as a Karakia. Whakataka Te Hau is in my experience usually spoken, but it is a song and this version is so stunning. The harmonies of the male and female voices in acapella is beautiful and carries so much emotion.

Kiwiana Christmas is my favourite off this album, it is catchy and fun, got stuck in my head, and is perfect for a Kiwiana Christmas! It boasts about ‘camping at the lake, cricket at the beach, Christmas carols at the park’ and asks ‘give me a summer Christmas time.

Silent Night was not what I was expecting as it starts with a voiceover about the story of Aotearoa and how ‘now it is our time to pull our country into a new age of cohesion and unity’. Then the classic song Silent Night is sung in both Te Reo and English elegantly before ending with the voiceover finishing the story. The final words are powerful and say ‘The bonds between our people must be of aroha and friendship’ 

Some of the tracks on this album pull at the  heartstrings and made to make you want to be with loved ones, be kind to others and spread love. Christmas is Coming is one of those songs and is about wanting to let the people less fortunate in the world know that Christmas is coming.

Loving to represent Palmerston North whenever possible on this album, there is O Come All Ye Faithful with the Palmerston North Brass Band playing the song behind them as Regan and Kane share what inspired them to start music, as well as Joy To The World, which is the Palmerston North Community Choir featuring people aged from 6 to 60 singing live from the Globe Theatre in Palmerston North.

Throughout the album there are a couple of songs that are completely sung in different languages other than Te Reo and English and these are Navidad which is Spanish and Don Oiche Ud I Mbeithill, an old Irish Christmas carol (That night in Bethlehem).

Finishing the album is Auld Lang Syne / Huita Te Rito. It starts with bagpipes playing Auld Lang Syne and a ‘thank you and hope you enjoyed listening to this album’ message from The KaRs. As a beautiful wahine sings the Te Reo in the background, Kane and Regan are translating it into English. 

You often hear people say we do not have enough Christmas songs that accurately depict an Aotearoa Christmas, but with this album The KaRs provide you with more than enough Kiwi themed Christmas bangers that everyone can enjoy, in a variety of languages that represent our culture. They will be on my Christmas playlist for years to come.

• 1
  Head Like A Hole
• 2
  Horror Story
• 3
  Fraser Ross
• 4
  Fur Patrol
• 5
  Devilskin
• 6
  Michelle Rounds
• 7
  L.A.B.
• 8
  Coridian
• 9
  The Feelers
• 10
  Late to Chelsea

• 
  Drax Project @ Waihi Beach Hotel, Waihi Beach - 30/12/2024
• 
  Wet Denim @ Waihi Beach Hotel, Waihi Beach - 30/12/2024
• 
  Casual Healing @ Festival of Lights - Pukekura Park, New Plymouth - 28/12/2024
• 
  Will McClean @ Festival of Lights - Pukekura Park, New Plymouth - 28/12/2024

• 1
  APT.
  ROSÉ And Bruno Mars
• 2
  DIE WITH A SMILE
  Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars
• 3
  BIRDS OF A FEATHER
  Billie Eilish
• 4
  TASTE
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 5
  I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
  Gracie Abrams
• 6
  ESPRESSO
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 7
  SAILOR SONG
  Gigi Perez
• 8
  LOSE CONTROL
  Teddy Swims
• 9
  A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
  Shaboozey
• 10
  GOOD LUCK, BABE!
  Chappell Roan

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