Christmas EveL

Did You Know?

• The English lyrics of "Domino" were co-written by Felix and Korean American rapper Junoflo.
• The album was nominated for Album of the Year – 4th Quarter at the 11th Gaon Chart Music Awards.
• NME's Rhian Daly rated the album four out of five stars.

Background

On January 1, 2021, Stray Kids released the video Step Out 2021, which outlined their Season Song project. That year, the group won the Mnet competition Kingdom: Legendary War and released their second studio album Noeasy on August 23, which sold over 1.2 million copies. On November 11, a mysterious poster promoted Christmas EveL, later described as a holiday special single and a thank-you gift for fans.

Music and lyrics

Christmas EveL runs thirteen minutes and fifty seconds across four tracks, categorized as Christmas, hip hop, and pop with a "Christmas naughty boy" theme. All tracks were produced and written by 3Racha, Stray Kids' in-house production team. The opening track "Christmas EveL" is a funky hip hop song expressing downsides of Christmas; Elite Daily called it an "anti-Christmas song". The ballad "24 to 25" focuses on spending time with fans, while "Winter Falls" details a person dealing with thoughts of a former relationship during winter.

Release and promotion

On November 11, 2021, Stray Kids released a mysterious poster for Christmas EveL featuring a smiley face on a red background, with a release date of 2021.11.29. Pre-orders for a limited CD version began that day, and a standard version on November 15. The group announced they would not promote the songs on music programs, offering the release as a gift to fans. Teaser photos showed members in tartan outfits and Christmas-themed settings. The track listing was posted on November 19, with "Christmas EveL" and "Winter Falls" as double lead singles. Music video teasers for both songs were released in late November, and the "Christmas EveL" music video premiered alongside the album, followed by "Winter Falls" on November 30 and "24 to 25" on December 6. "Winter Falls" debuted at 2021 SBS Gayo Daejeon on December 25, and the group performed "24 to 25" and "Christmas EveL" at the 2022 edition.

Commercial performance

Christmas EveL became Stray Kids’ sixth number-one album in South Korea when it topped the Gaon Album Chart for the November 28 to December 4, 2021 period, with 654,658 copies sold by the end of that month. Its lead tracks “Christmas EveL” and “Winter Falls” appeared on the Gaon Digital Chart at positions 114 and 151, while all four songs landed on the Gaon Download Chart, the lead singles inside the top ten. In the U.S., the single album reached number 25 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and number 9 on Hungary’s Album Top 40. The Korea Music Content Association awarded it double platinum certification on February 10, 2022, and triple platinum on May 12.