As the world’s only full-time Christmas music artist, Elizabeth Chan usually releases a holiday album each year. But in 2023, the singer, nicknamed “The Queen of Christmas,” broke her spine in an accident, and figured there was no way she could make a record while she was immobile in bed. But everyone around her pitched in to help — including her six-year-old daughter, Noelle.
“Honestly, this album was truly a Christmas miracle because my band and my team and my friends and my fans and my family, they kind of just all came around me and said, ‘You don’t miss Christmases, Elizabeth. You’re still here and there’s going to be a Christmas. We’ll get you there,'” she tells ABC Audio.
But Elizabeth never thought her daughter would be the one to creatively drive the album, titled Songs from Noelle.
As Elizabeth explains, “She and I had been, like, writing music after school. She had been singing Christmas songs. She’s doing her own Christmas stuff at school. And she said to me, ‘Mommy, I can help you. I can do this.'”
Noelle ended up not only singing on the album, both alone and with her mom, but also co-writing two of the songs and even personally choosing some of the material. And Elizabeth says it’s something Noelle chose to do herself.
“Without me over-prompting her. She literally loves music and she literally loves Christmas and she literally loves writing and she literally loves singing,” says Elizabeth proudly.
“Having an album curated by her and written by her, and the way that she’s embraced it and my team embraced it and my musicians … they wanted to show me that no matter what, like, I can make it to Christmas.”
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