Jann Arden to Ring in the Holidays With Bryan Adams and Michael Bublé in Upcoming Christmas Special, ‘Alone for the Holidays’

Andrew Wright | December 9th, 2022

A scene from Jann Arden's upcoming Christmas special, 'Alone for the Holidays,' which features performances from fellow Canadian musicians Bryan Adams and Michael Bublé. Photo: Chris Large/Courtesy of CTV

Jann Arden is ringing in the holidays this year with her very own Christmas special, Alone for the Holidays.

The program, which will feature back-to-back episodes of her CTV series JANN, sees her character — a fictionalized version of herself — navigate the holiday season after she learns her family has excluded her from their festivities. It airs on Dec. 9 on CTV at 9:00 p.m. ET.

“With her assistant Trey (Tenaj Williams) for company, she reminisces about Christmases past — the good, the bad and the humiliating — and it soon becomes clear there’s more than one way to holiday,” the CTV synopsis reads.

Meanwhile, the real Jann Arden, who pulls double duty on the special with performances of holiday standards, won’t be sharing her character’s plight. The 60-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter and actress has enlisted fellow Canuck talents Michael Bublé, 47, and Bryan Adams, 63, to join the one-hour special as well.

The pair are uniquely qualified for the task. Bublé hosted his own holiday special last year on NBC and he counts his 2011 album, Christmas, as one of his most successful releases to date. Not to be outdone, Adams’ original 1985 song “Christmas Time,” which was re-released on his 2019 holiday album, Christmas EP, enters heavy rotation every year alongside all the beloved classics.

But the Canuck rocker isn’t resting on his festive laurels for the upcoming special. Nearing the end of a year that saw him release four albums — including his Grammy-nominated So Happy It Hurts — and embark on a North American tour, Adams has released a new festive offering, “Let’s Get Christmas Going,” just in time for the program.

In fact, during Adams’ recent appearance on The Jann Arden Podcast, Arden revealed that the song was so fresh, the rockstar needed a little help with the lyrics when he showed up to tape his scene for the upcoming show.

“Everyone was scrambling to write on the back of pieces of cardboard so that you could sing the song,” Arden recalled.

“Well, you know what, you put the pressure on when there’s cameras there, you want to make sure you deliver,” Adams explained. “There’s just too many damn words.”

The song, which he wrote only three days before the taping, was inspired by a conversation he had with his nine-year-old daughter last year, months before Christmas.

She said to me, ‘Let’s just get Christmas going,'” he recalled. “And I’d say, ‘It’s September, you just got to hang in there.’

“And I just thought it was such a funny thing to say,” he continues. “I just remembered it and decided to make a song out of that.”

Jann Arden’s Alone for the Holidays airs Dec. 9 on CTV at 9:00 p.m. ET.

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