{"id":38270,"date":"2026-01-31T15:46:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=38270"},"modified":"2026-01-31T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:46:21","slug":"it-brings-her-back-to-me-jennifer-hudson-reveals-the-one-song-she-sings-every-december-to-honor-the-grandmother-who-raised-her-after-20-years-of-missing-her-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=38270","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt Brings Her Back to Me.\u201d \u2014 Jennifer Hudson Reveals the One Song She Sings Every December to Honor the Grandmother Who Raised Her After 20 Years of Missing Her Voice."},"content":{"rendered":"

For Jennifer Hudson<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, music has always been more than performance. It is memory. It is lineage. And every December, it becomes a quiet conversation with the woman who raised her long before fame ever called her name.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Hudson released her first-ever holiday album, The Gift of Love<\/span><\/span><\/em>, the project was framed as a celebration of warmth, faith, and togetherness. But beneath the festive glow, one track carried a gravity unlike anything else in her catalog. Her rendition of The Christmas Song<\/span><\/span><\/em> wasn\u2019t chosen for tradition or chart appeal\u2014it was chosen for love.<\/span><\/p>\n

The song belonged to her grandmother, Julia Kate Hudson.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Voice That Filled the House<\/span><\/h3>\n

Growing up in Chicago, Hudson didn\u2019t experience Christmas through perfectly wrapped gifts or polished decorations. She remembers sound first. Her grandmother\u2019s voice\u2014steady, warm, and protective\u2014singing \u201cChestnuts roasting on an open fire\u201d every holiday season. It filled their home with safety, ritual, and reassurance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Julia Kate Hudson passed away before Jennifer\u2019s rise to global fame, before American Idol<\/span><\/span><\/em>, before Dreamgirls<\/span><\/span><\/em>, before the awards and standing ovations. But her presence never left.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recording \u201cThe Christmas Song\u201d decades later, Hudson has said, felt less like covering a classic and more like entering a spiritual duet. \u201cIt brings her back to me,\u201d she explained. In just three minutes, the distance between superstardom and childhood disappears.<\/span><\/p>\n

Singing as Inheritance<\/span><\/h3>\n

Hudson has often credited her grandmother for shaping not just her voice, but her understanding of why singing matters. Julia Kate Hudson was a church soloist who taught Jennifer that singing wasn\u2019t about impressing\u2014it was about gratitude, devotion, and truth. Long before Jennifer ever sang professionally with her eyes open, she learned how to sing from the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

That foundation echoes throughout her career. Hudson has even revealed that the emotional force behind her Oscar-winning performance in Dreamgirls<\/em> was rooted in the same gospel intensity her grandmother loved\u2014especially hymns like \u201cHow Great Thou Art.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A Career That Comes Home<\/span><\/h3>\n

From 2024 through 2026, Hudson\u2019s work has increasingly circled back to those roots. The Gift of Love<\/em> wasn\u2019t just a holiday album; it was a homecoming. On her intimate live tour, she transformed theaters into spaces that mirrored the warmth of her grandmother\u2019s house\u2014places where audiences felt held, not dazzled.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an EGOT winner and host of The Jennifer Hudson Show<\/span><\/span><\/em>, Hudson could easily focus on legacy-building. Instead, she continues to center legacy-remembering.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every December, when she sings \u201cThe Christmas Song,\u201d Hollywood fades. She\u2019s no longer an icon or a headline\u2014she\u2019s a little girl again, listening in the hallway, absorbing the voice that started everything. And in that moment, her grandmother sings back.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Jennifer Hudson, music has always been more than performance. It is memory. It is lineage. And every December, it becomes a quiet conversation with the woman who raised her long before fame ever called her name. When Hudson released her first-ever holiday album, The Gift of Love, the project was framed as a celebration…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}