Andrew Bird knows there’s no place like home for the holidays. The indie artist, who grew up in the Chicago area, returns to town this December for his traditional series of Gezelligheid concerts at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. Bird (Bienen ’95) has made a name for himself through decades of genre-defying music that highlights his skills as a trained violinist and virtuosic whistler. In November, he released the first half of his Christmas record, “HARK!,” featuring a mix of festive originals and jazzy covers of classic tunes. And he’ll be ringing in the holidays on a high note: He recently received his first Grammy Award nomination for his 2019 record “My Finest Work Yet.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about your Grammy nomination?

It’s a nice surprise for me. I’ve made 14 records, and I’d kind of written it off — I just felt like, you know, maybe I’m not in the Grammy game, which is fine. It’s nice to get some validation, I suppose.

You were nominated in the Best Folk Album category. How do you think about genre in your music?

It’s fairly arbitrary. The upside of the Grammy thing is now, it kind of gets me out of awkward conversations with my parents’ friends. Instead of trying to explain what I do, which is always — people’s eyes glaze over when I say, “Oh, I play violin, I whistle, I write songs.” And they’re like, “What kind of music do you play?” And there’s never an easy answer to that question.

At Northwestern years ago, I was going to Irish folk sessions on in clubs on Sundays and in orchestra on Monday. I was all over the place, just soaking up whatever I could get my hands on. And now, what I do is some sort of unconscious amalgamation of all that all that stuff. But I would say the word “folk” is about it inclusive as you can get, being that we’re all people that make just the musical sounds that human beings make.

You just released your holiday record, “HARK!” — what inspired you to create a Christmas record?

It wasn’t something that I’d really thought of doing all these years. But a few years ago on a whim I did a version of “Auld Lang Syne,” and I did all this super archaic versus that no one ever can remember. People dug it, so I was like, “OK, maybe I can dig out some other gems.” It’s a funny genre, the holiday music thing. People love and hate it, but you’ve got to admit, the classics are great melodies.

What did your creative process look like for this album?

It was really quick and no fuss — I got some great players together. I was not trying to make some Christmas masterpiece. You know, Christmas music is an ambient thing to put on, and it’s supposed to just contribute to the atmosphere. In a way, not being focused on my persona or my songwriting or what I have to say is a nice break from the main record, which is pretty serious and has a lot to say. So to be honest, the creative process is just like, “Let’s play some jazz music, and do it quick and have fun.”

What are your own Christmas traditions?

I tend to do these Gezelligheid shows every year. That brings me back to Chicago, and that’s become a big tradition. I think of the holidays as a reason to try to light up some of the darkness that we have to get through. So I get into it — I almost throw my back out every year getting the tree off the car.

I was trying to write songs for “HARK!” at first, and I can’t help but kind of go into the dark side with my writing. As a writer, you’re drawn to conflict right away and not, like, happiness and congeniality. And I scrapped all that — I’ve got a couple songs that are just sitting there about things going terribly wrong over Christmas. I played them for myself and I was just like, “No, this is not necessary.”

With your annual Gezelligheid concert series, which is held in this more intimate venue, what’s the atmosphere like?

It’s not adrenaline-based. It’s more driven by emotion. There’s different ways of listening to music. One is the rock and roll show where you kind of hit the audience, and they hit you back. It’s this dynamic that gets your blood moving. But then there’s another way of going to shows, where you just let the music wash over you. It’s very meditative and spiritual and a totally valid, different way of experiencing a show.

It’s a beautiful church, on the right kind of scale. It’s not gigantic, it doesn’t swallow up sound — it’s a human scale, basically. I’m indulging myself as much as I think I can in sort of wrapping up myself and the listeners in this blanket of sound, with the looping, the violin and these horns.

And with your Christmas record, what was the mood you were trying to capture? In what settings do you imagine people listening to the album?

The same reason I started doing Gezelligheid is to create that kind of warm, sleepy comfort that you remember from your childhood, if you’re lucky. What I remember from my childhood is sort of this warm glow of music and light.

(For “HARK!”) I wrote an original song called “Alabaster,” just talking about when you’re outside and it’s dark and cold. I remember in Chicago, I’d walk and walk through neighborhoods and look at people’s windows, that warm glow in the darkness, and how that feels to be on the outside looking in. The other original on that record is “Night’s Falling,” which is an older song of mine that I reimagined. It’s addressing people who are left out, who are homeless or otherwise alienated, and trying to offer some words of comfort, for what it’s worth.

Do you have any favorite holiday memories from when you were younger?

I did most of my growing up in Lake Bluff on the North Shore. I remember lying on my back underneath the tree, and we had this ornament — you plugged it in and it was this white ball with tinsel inside it and it made this bird sound, and our cat would just go nuts thinking that there’s a bird inside this ball. I just remember dozing off under the tree when my cat is pouncing all over. And listening to Pavarotti.

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Twitter: @madsburk