The White Stripes made a trippy yule log video for this sad, lonely holiday

By Dan Caffrey  |  December 22, 2020 | 11:05pm
Aux Features the white stripes
The White Stripes made a trippy yule log video for this sad, lonely holiday
Screenshot: The White Stripes

The White Stripes seemed to have Christmas joy in their DNA from the very beginning. The duo almost named themselves The Peppermints (one of Meg White ’s favorite candies), the red and white in their color scheme evoked the wintery confections, and they released a holiday song early on called “Candy Cane Children.” Hell, Jack White even plays some spirited Christmas mandolin in Cold Mountain.

But their most recent Christmas outing takes the festivities to another level. In celebration of their recently released anthology, My Sister Thanks You And I Thank You: The White Stripes Greatest Hits, the Stripes have teamed up with director Noah Sterling and illustrator Blue J to create their own animated yule log video.

The trippiness of the 90-minute loop almost feels counterintuitive. Where most yule log videos are meant to be relegated to the background, the dynamism here is compelling to the point where you may want to actually, well, watch. It starts in a winter hunting lodge outfitted with a roaring fireplace and several animal heads mounted on the wall—some of them fantastical. As “Candy Cane Children” plays, we slowly zoom into the mouth of a grizzly bear, which reveals a family of bees hanging out inside a honeycomb. Another zoom into one of the hexagonal honey cells shows an elderly couple cozying up with their cats on Christmas, with each camera shift showing a progressively stranger scenario—vampires, yetis, dragons, Krampuses, and other imaginary creatures all make appearances before we’re back at the cabin and the whole thing starts over. Everything is illustrated in red, white, and black, and the soundtrack spans greatest hits, b-sides, and demos.

Watch the whole thing below and pretend it’s playing at a real-life Christmas party.

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