A holly jolly bluegrass Christmas. Billy Strings has wrapped up his tours for the year, rounding out his 2025 winter tour with some stellar shows in Texas. After laying it down in Austin’s Moody Arena, he performed for a smaller crowd, delivering an in-the-round style show at ACL Live. View this post on Instagram Billy officially has a break in touring until hitting the road again in February for two sold-out nights in Atlanta to kick off 2026. And when artists are back home enjoying time with their families, it gives us fans the perfect opportunity to revisit some of their older material. Billy Strings, who has been picking all of his life, has no shortage of that footage, leading us to a bluegrass holiday ditty that he laid down back in 2012. The early 2010s saw some of String’s most iconic at-home videos, long before he was in the limelight. The Michigan native, born William Apostol, quickly got the name Billy Strings for playing guitars nearly as big as he was with other great musicians. His stepfather, Terry Barber, played a massive role in Strings’ musical development. He taught Strings how to play and often sat in on the parties his dad would host in the trailer park where he grew up. As the parties never seemed to end, Strings was exposed to the dark reality of drug addiction in the community, including his parents. After seeing this, he moved out of the house at 13 to avoid falling into addiction. Once he moved out of the house, Strings started playing with metal bands. Although it was a short stint, it was fundamental to curating his version of bluegrass. Once Billy Strings was back in the bluegrass scene, when he was about 20 years old, a few of his videos from 2012, like his legendary “Dust In A Baggie” basement video, took off online and are still highly loved by fans, seeing how talented he was that early in his career. In the same year that the viral “Dust In A Baggie” video was filmed, Billy Strings shared another home video that never fails to put a bluegrass lover in the holiday spirit. In 2012, Strings sat in front of a video camera, shirtless with a Santa hat on, and flat-picked a stellar rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock.” The Christmas classic was originally recorded by Bobby Helms in 1957, and over the years, it has been covered by numerous artists. In Strings’ rendition of the song, he does not stray too far away from the original composition. Naturally, the music will sound different from the original recording, given it’s an acoustic cover rather than a full-band recording, yet while maintaining the integrity of the original, Strings finds a way to make it sound authentic to his style and picking. I could listen to Billy Strings perform Christmas tunes all day long. It’s always a swell time to play some Billy Strings, so turn this one all the way up. And just for fun, fire up the legendary “Dust In A Baggie” performance while you’re here: The post Watch Billy Strings Put A Bluegrass Twist On “Jingle Bell Rock” Way Back In 2012 first appeared on Whiskey Riff.