Tyra Banks Rewrites the Story of Christmas on New Song ‘Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE’: ‘I Want Everybody Laughing’ (Exclusive)

You already know Tyra Banks. Now, get ready to meet Santa SMiZE.

As if she didn’t already offer enough to the holiday season with her viral hot ice cream, the SMiZE & Dream founder released a festive new banger, “Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE,” for her 52nd birthday on Thursday, Dec. 4 — and its lyrics are reimagining the story of Christmas.

“You think you know Christmas? Do you really, though?” asks Banks at the top of the high-energy song centered performed from the perspective of Santa SMiZE, the first character from the world of her SMiZE & Dream ice cream brand. “I want everybody laughing,” she tells PEOPLE.

Laughter is to be expected from listeners of the song, a three-and-a-half minute dance track jam-packed with fictional lore, a section inspired by “Cha-Cha Slide” that aims to get every family member on their feet to dance at your holiday party and even shoutouts to desserts from around the world.

“I was trying to create a classic. Who knows? It’s not for me to create that classic. It’s for me to write it and put it into the world and see,” says Banks. “I’m not a singer. I’m not a recording artist, but hopefully people will be inspired by ‘shine bright, shine far, don’t be shy, be a star’ [from 2000’s Life-Size] and say, ‘She sang something before!'”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

According to the supermodel, the song’s titular character — whose actual name is Kelly — was a little girl who lived in the South Pole hundreds of years ago with her friend, Claus. She gained fame in the region for making delicious ice cream out of snow and became a performer, with Claus serving as her backup singer and dancer. “But he started to get a little jealous because she was getting all this attention,” she says.

Kelly had a plan to deliver her ice cream to people around the world on the day we now recognize as Christmas, but Claus’ jealousy led him to some evil behavior. He locked Kelly behind ice, stole her signature yellow suit and turned it inside out to reveal its red fabric lining, which he turned into his own look. Then, he moved to the North Pole and started going by Santa Claus.

All this time, Kelly’s remained frozen — and her story’s been erased. “For her to be released, it’s kind of like Beetlejuice, you have to say, ‘Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE,'” explains Banks. Luckily, somewhere in America a young girl recently learned to pronounce “Santa” at a family photo session, during which her older sister encouraged the family to smize, a.k.a. smile with your eyes.

Now, Banks explains, “It’s 2025, and she’s back.”

Of course, that’s just the lore behind the song. The lyrics find Banks flexing her writing muscles to explore a wide array of holiday themes. “My engineer and producer, he’s like, ‘Girl, this is a lot of lyrics,'” says the artist, who took an old-school approach to writing with a pen and paper. “Our creative director, who also worked on the song, he’s like, ‘You have a beautiful mind. It’s a little weird. You know your paper looks crazy, right?'”

Banks was aware. “I’m like, ‘What’s happening to me? I think I am going crazy,'” she recalls.

With “Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE” now in listeners’ hands, the Coyote Ugly star hopes to bring the energy up at holiday functions this year. The song even features directions on how to do so, with nods to grandmothers doing the Dutty Wine, stepmoms doing the robot and more.

“If I’m going to get up and dance and be crazy, I love it when I see the person that says, ‘I’m not going to get up,’ get up,” says Banks. “We all have the uncle, the cousin, the somebody that’s just going to start the fight, that’s going to start the argument, that’s going to say the wrong thing or whatever it is. I wanted to create this moment where everybody is just laughing and crazy together.”

Beyond the dance directions, “Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE” also finds the ice cream connoisseur nodding at niche desserts from around the world, including Haluhalo from the Philippines and Bingsu from South Korea. “I want people to feel seen and cultures to feel like, ‘Damn, wait, homegirl knows what Bingsu is,'” she says.

“I feel really fortunate in my modeling career to have traveled the world, been to a lot of places and experienced desserts and tastes and things that are still not viral,” explains Banks. “And so I was like, ‘I want to name check familiar desserts and some desserts that are not familiar in the bridge.'”

The song is certainly filled to the brim with lyrics and concepts, and she knows listeners will each experience it differently. “Not everybody’s got to go deep, but for the person that’s going to go deep, honey, I got all kind of Easter eggs,” she says.

However, Banks was mostly excited to dive into storytelling. “A lot of people know me as a model, but I got discovered to be a model when I was on my way to college to be a writer and producer for television and film,” she says. “So, I’m only returning back to my roots.”