Darius Rucker recently released his first Christmas album, Home for the Holidays. He co-wrote two songs on the collection – the 2009 “Candy Cane Christmas,” which originally appeared on Now! That’s What I Call Christmas 4 and his new holiday single, “What God Wants for Christmas.” He teamed up with producer Frank Rogers and songwriter Monte Criswell.

“Monte Criswell had this great idea and this great thing he had come up with of ‘What God Wants for Christmas,’” says Darius. “We sat down and the first thing I did was I Googled ‘What God Wants for Christmas,’ and I couldn’t believe no one had ever written that…So, we sat down and just the whole time was so inspirational I think for all of us. We were sitting there writing the song and it was coming. Every line somebody said was a line we used and it was a great line. We wanted to write one of those songs that years from now people are still listening to and people are still – and it’s important to people. We wanted to put God back in Christmas, and that’s what we tried to do with that song.”

Home for the Holidays also features such classics as “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with Sheryl Crow, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Winter Wonderland” and “White Christmas,” among others.

Darius Rucker (What God Wants for Christmas) OC: …with that song. :57
“Frank and I had gotten with this guy named Steve Lesley. Frank Rogers and I got with Steve Lesley years ago when we wrote ‘Candy Cane Christmas’ which is a secular, cool, great song that we loved. And so we decided we were going to put that on the Christmas record, but we wanted to write a religious song too, and Monte Criswell had this great idea and this great thing he had come up with of ‘What God Wants for Christmas.’ He was like, ‘Let’s write this.’ I was like, ‘Cool. Let’s write that.’ We sat down and the first thing I did was I Googled ‘What God Wants for Christmas,’ and I couldn’t believe no one had ever written that. Of all the Christmas songs and all the ideas people have had no one had ever written ‘I Wonder What God Wants for Christmas’ and that was crazy to me. So, we sat down and just the whole time was so inspirational I think for all of us. We were sitting there writing the song and it was coming. Every line somebody said was a line we used and it was a great line. We wanted to write one of those songs that years from now people are still listening to and people are still – and it’s important to people. We wanted to put God back in Christmas, and that’s what we tried to do with that song.”