What do She & Him want for Christmas? ‘Real instruments’ played by humans

It’s not that Zooey Deschanel thinks Mariah Carey’s signature holiday standard is a terrible song. In truth, it’s just the sound of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — those lacquered synths and booming drums — that turns off the singer and actress best known as the star of the hit Fox sitcom “New Girl.” “The melody is actually really nice,” Deschanel said on a recent afternoon. Hanging with Ward in Culver City on a day off from shooting “New Girl,” Deschanel said they had the analog warmth of certain pop classics in mind — “The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album” and “A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector,” to name two — as they recorded “Christmas Party” over the summer. “Even our friends were dismissive — like, ‘Oh, that was a nice little thing,’” recalled Deschanel, who met Ward when the two were asked to record a duet for an independent film called “The Go-Getter.” Yet they continued playing and writing together, creating two more albums of original songs, a previous Christmas disc and, in 2014, a sly standards set that showed off a new depth in Deschanel’s singing. “We tried to do ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’ but then we realized how religious that song is,” said Deschanel, who explained that She & Him approach holiday music from a decidedly un-churchy point of view.