Sometimes a great country song begins with heartbreak. Sometimes it begins with a memory. But one of Merle Haggard’s most beloved Christmas songs began with a surprisingly ordinary question about a friend’s sixth marriage.
It happened during a coffee break at a recording session in the early 1970s. Merle Haggard was talking with Roy Nichols, the brilliant lead guitarist who had helped shape the sound of Merle Haggard and the Strangers.
Roy Nichols had recently married for the sixth time, and Merle Haggard couldn’t resist asking whether this marriage had a better chance of lasting.
Roy Nichols gave an answer that Merle Haggard would never forget.
“If we make it through December, I think we’ll be all right.”
At first, it sounded like a simple comment about marriage. But when Merle Haggard asked Roy Nichols what he meant, the conversation took an unexpected turn.
The Conversation That Changed Everything
Roy Nichols explained that December could be one of the hardest months of the year for ordinary working families.
Christmas brought happiness, but it also brought expenses. There were presents to buy, bills to pay, and expectations to meet. For families living from one paycheck to the next, the holidays could become a season of worry.
Merle Haggard had become a successful recording artist by then, but Roy Nichols reminded Merle Haggard that success could make it easy to forget what those struggles felt like.
Years later, in a 2004 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Merle Haggard recalled that conversation and explained how Roy Nichols’s words brought back memories from Merle Haggard’s own life.
Merle Haggard remembered having a young daughter, being without work, and struggling to find employment because of his criminal record.
Merle Haggard knew what it meant to want something better for a child while having almost nothing to offer.
Those memories gave Roy Nichols’s passing remark an entirely different meaning.
From a Sixth Marriage to “If We Make It Through December”
That conversation became the inspiration for “If We Make It Through December,” a song Merle Haggard wrote and recorded in 1973.
Instead of writing about Roy Nichols’s marriage, Merle Haggard imagined a father who had lost his job just before Christmas.
The man in the song wants to give his little daughter a happy holiday, but there simply isn’t enough money. He knows that his child cannot fully understand why Christmas will be different that year.
There is no dramatic villain in the story. No betrayal, no bitter argument, and no grand tragedy.
There is only a father who loves his daughter, feels the weight of his circumstances, and hopes the family can survive a difficult winter.
That simplicity is what makes the song so powerful.
Merle Haggard wasn’t trying to create another cheerful Christmas recording. Merle Haggard was giving a voice to parents who had experienced the painful difference between what they wanted to provide and what they could actually afford.
A Christmas Song That Reached Number One
Released as a single in October 1973, “If We Make It Through December” appeared on the album Merle Haggard’s Christmas Present.
The recording struck a chord with American listeners. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country singles chart and remained there for four weeks across December 1973 and January 1974.
The song also crossed over to the pop charts, reaching No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its popularity was so enduring that it became the title track of another Merle Haggard album released in February 1974.
Over the years, other artists recorded the song, including Alan Jackson, introducing its story to another generation of country music listeners.
Why the Story Still Matters
There is something remarkable about the distance between the conversation that inspired the song and the finished recording.
Roy Nichols was talking about whether a sixth marriage could survive the financial pressures of December. Merle Haggard heard something larger: the struggles of working people, the sacrifices parents make, and the quiet hope that tomorrow might be easier than today.
That is why “If We Make It Through December” remains more than a Christmas song.
For listeners who have ever struggled to pay bills, worried about disappointing their children, or simply wished for a better year ahead, the feeling is familiar.
And it all began during a coffee break, when Merle Haggard asked Roy Nichols a question about marriage and received an answer that became part of country music history.