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Hannah Ellis and Nick Wayne shared a lighthearted tribute to the hustle and bustle of the holiday season with their festive new duet, “Christmas at 60 MPH.”
The married singer-songwriters teamed up with Mark Trussell to write “Christmas at 60 MPH,” and Eric Arjes produced it. Ellis and Wayne released the song after playing it live at Ellis’ Christmas shows in recent years, and it’s resonated with audiences and families, many of whom could relate. “Christmas at 60 MPH” tells the story of the couple driving along wintery roads to spend time with both of their families to celebrate the holidays (and enjoying the journey along the way).
Wayne shared in a recent conversation with iHeartCountry that Four Christmases “is on of our favorite movies.” The 2008 holiday film starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon tells the story of a couple striving to spend time with all four of their parents for Christmas. Wayne and Ellis are no strangers to balancing time with loved ones, “and so, it’s kind of really a good depiction of our life in December and we wanted to write a song about it,” he said.
Ellis added that she and her husband “thought it was fun to romanticize” what can, at times, be “a stressful piece of the Christmas holiday.” The lyrics of the newly-released holiday duet nod to the time spent in the car and adjusting schedules to spend time with everyone. “I would say my favorite (lyric) is — you kind of have to be really paying attention to catch the nuance of it, but — the bridge is a reprieve of the first line. In the first line, it's kind of him going, ‘if your dad's at 1 p.m. and my dad's at 3 p.m., we have to leave by 3 p.m.,’ or it's kind of this timing thing. But then in the bridge when he says it again, he says, ‘we have to leave by 3:15 because we all know that the girl's going to get just a little more time with her family. Or we're going to try to, anyway.”
Wayne echoed that he loves the “scheduling” and the “team effort” described in the verses of “Christmas at 60 MPH.” “I love that the song is…highlighting that we’re together even in the car, or trying to remember all the things.”
“I think it has a uniqueness to it,” he said. “I don’t know that I’ve heard a Christmas song like that yet.”
Ellis and Wayne have embraced cherished traditions with their families over the years, including singing Christmas carols, cooking while watching The Muppet Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve, and stopping at a go-to coffee shop in Ellis’ hometown. Now, Ellis and Wayne are heading into their first holiday season as parents. They welcomed Baby No. 1, son Huck Humble Richardson, at 6:03 a.m. on November 6, Ellis shared earlier this week. She said Huck is “happy and healthy and the Richardsons are home soaking up baby bliss.” She shared a few more photos of her newborn baby on Friday (November 14) in honor of his due date. Ellis also shared a glimpse of her time in the studio with Wayne, celebrating “Christmas in July” as they recorded “Christmas at 60 MPH” wearing holiday sweaters in the middle of the summer. Ellis laughed as she told iHeartCountry, “I was like, we have to wear Christmas attire when we sing this. Otherwise, we'll never sound Christmassy.”
Now that we’re heading into the holiday season (and sweater weather is upon us), listen to “Christmas at 60 MPH” here: