Madonna and family took a holiday, some time to celebrate! On break from the U.S. leg of her world Celebration Tour, the pop legend, 65, kicked back for Christmas with most of her kids at one of her luxurious homes — and shared an intimate, emotional and surprising montage via Instagram.
"Santa babies," the icon wrote in the caption alongside a slew of Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and Christmas tree emojis. Soundtracked by Madonna's own rendition of "Santa Baby" (from 1987 and featured on the charity album A Very Special Christmas), the holiday reel appears to have been filmed at the superstar's 58-acre estate in Bridgehampton, New York, which includes a horse ranch. (The "Like a Virgin" singer has been an avid equestrian for a couple decades now, and has passed down the pursuit with her kids as seen in clips over the years.)
In the reel, we see pics of Madonna, in braids, minimal makeup and baggy jeans, striking a sultry pose in late-afternoon light and reading the cheeky children's bedtime book Go the **** to Sleep in front of a Christmas tree. In a more glam shots, wearing a negligee-style dress, fishnet stockings, a black coat festooned with red lips and an "M" choker, she poses with eldest daughter Lourdes Leon, 27, Mercy James, 17, David Banda, 18, and twins Estere and Stella, 10, in front of a Christmas tree, by a framed work of art and a festive tablescape (with balloons and streamers behind them) spots inside their home. The only child missing from the pics? Rocco Ritchie, 23, her son with second husband, director Guy Ritchie. (Madonna shares Lourdes with personal trainer ex Carlos Leon; she adopted David, Mercy and the twins from Malawi, Africa.)
In other shots from the reel, we see Estere and Stella hang out with horses by the stables, Mercy oohing and aahing over a festively decorated room, David and Mercy looking outside contemplatively, a plate of Christmas cookies, and a shot of a book hilariously entitled There Are Moms Way Worse Than You Are: Irrefutable Proof That You Are Indeed a Fantastic Parent. Even funnier is the Christmas ornament Madonna proudly poses with: an ornament of herself circa her Blonde Ambition Tour era of 1990 (read: gold Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra, painted-on beauty mark, and curly platinum-blonde hair). We also see Madonna posing in a chair provocatively with longtime friend and collaborator, photographer Steven Klein and embracing an unidentified loved one (perhaps Rocco) wearing a skull-festooned hoodie.
This holiday season is both a triumphant and poignant one for Madonna and family. She's getting well-deserved rave reviews for her tour, an imaginative and nostalgic career retrospective which played to packed crowds in Europe and just began Stateside dates in NYC and Washington, D.C. The global trek — which featured appearances from all six of her kids at certain shows — was pushed back by a few months following a terrifying health crisis over the summer, which landed the Grammy winner in the ICU and a medically induced coma.
"The fact that I'm here right now is the [expletive] miracle," Madonna told the crowd at Brooklyn's Barclay Center at her emotional December 16 concert.
She then acknowledged a "very important woman," named Shavawn, who "dragged" her to the hospital after she "passed out on my bathroom floor and woke up in the ICU," noting that Shavawn "saved my life."
"A couple of things I thought about when I first became conscious and saw my six incredible children around me," she continued, quipping, "By the way, I had to almost die to get all my kids in one room."
"And I was thinking, 'What if I left my children?' That would destroy me to leave my children at this moment in their lives. I wasn't thinking about me. I was thinking about them, and I was thinking about my mother and how scared she must have been to know that she was going to leave us all behind."
Madonna's mother, also named Madonna, died at age 30 following a cancer battle; the future music legend was just five at the time of her passing, and has explored that traumatic experience in many songs, including "Promise to Try," "Oh Father," "Inside of Me," "Mother and Father" and more.
The Celebration Tour resumes in Boston on January 8 and wraps up in Mexico City in April.