Some celebrity moments are built to fade like last year’s tinsel. Others become immortal, looping through the internet like a festive ghost who forgot how to move on. Camila Cabello’s legendary White House Christmas performance from 2021 falls firmly in the second category. One slightly quirky pronunciation turned Christmas into quismois, and suddenly a new holiday spirit was born.
Now, three years later, the “Havana” singer is still laughing, wincing, and low-key haunted by it. In a TikTok posted on Wednesday, Dec. 24, Cabello revisited the viral moment after a fan asked the obvious question that refuses to die: “Why do you pronounce Christmas like that?”
© PBSMouthing the words to a sound filled with roaring laughter, Cabello looked straight into the camera and delivered a mock dramatic line that instantly felt iconic. “No, no, but it’s not funny at the end of the day, is it? It’s serious.”
Her caption took it even further. “December is a triggering time for me.” She filmed it standing in front of a glowing Christmas tree, which made the whole thing even funnier. The ghost of quismois was clearly alive and thriving.
How one tiny mispronunciation became internet folklore
Back in 2021, Cabello performed at the White House holiday celebration. Everything was festive, polished, and sweet, until she sang the word Christmas in a way that made the internet collectively tilt its head. The sound came out more like quismois, and TikTok did what TikTok does best. It clipped it, looped it, memed it, and turned it into pop culture confetti.
© PBSInstead of pretending it never happened, Cabello leaned into the joke. That choice made the moment even more powerful. She transformed a tiny slip into a full-blown comedy era. The show premiered on PBS on December 21. You can re-watch by searching: “In Performance at the White House: Spirit of the Season” visiting PBS.
In 2022, she posted a hilarious video where she played both herself and her imaginary vocal coach. She carefully enunciated Christmas while singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” then switched outfits and tried again. And yes, quismois came right back. After a few failed attempts, she threw in the towel and declared, “It’s gonna be great.”
Her caption read, “me before recording my version of I’ll be home for christmas (quismois).” Fans loved it. The internet crowned her the queen of self-awareness.
From Bing Crosby to Quismois Queen
That playful video dropped around the same time Cabello released her own cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The song was originally popularized by Bing Crosby in 1943, but now it has a brand new layer of modern pop culture attached to it.
Her version landed on streaming platforms and felt both nostalgic and mischievous. It was like a wink to everyone who knew the joke, which by then was basically the entire internet.
This is what makes Cabello’s handling of the moment so charming. She never tried to scrub it away. She let it become part of her story, a tiny, weird chapter in a much bigger career. Now every December, as Christmas trees go up and playlists come on, the ghost of quismois quietly floats back into our feeds. And honestly, the holidays would not feel quite the same without it.
Some ghosts are scary. Some are annoying. And some just make you laugh every time you hear them. The ghost of quismois past belongs in the last category, jingling happily through pop culture with zero plans to ever leave.
