The latest holiday hit by Elizabeth Chan, dubbed “The Queen of Christmas” by The New Yorker, is “A Christmas Song.” It’s the first Christmas song she ever wrote, but she’s re-released it this year to celebrate her 10th anniversary of making Christmas music. It was inspired, she says, by Christmas music itself.
“My earliest memories of Christmas music is me and my sister just listening to the radio 24 hours a day, just being so excited to listen to Christmas music,” Elizabeth tells ABC Audio. “Because I really think, in my life, that’s what makes Christmases.”
The 10th anniversary version of “A Christmas Song” appears on Elizabeth’s new album, Greatest of These Days, which features her holiday hits and some new tracks — and she actually let her family pick the album’s first single.
“They chose ‘A Christmas Song.’ They literally voted for that,” she shares. “There’s always a part of me that’s like, ‘My first song? Really?’ But…I always knew that it was a special song.”
And speaking of family, Elizabeth’s four-year-old Noelle now gets that Mommy’s job is writing Christmas songs and singing them, but she doesn’t quite get the whole picture.
“She actually says to me, ‘Mommy, I just wrote a song. And tomorrow it’ll be on the radio!’ She thinks it’s that easy!!!” Elizabeth laughs. “But that’s the beauty [of it]. She has no limiting beliefs! That’s the same heart that I had when I said to my parents, ‘I love Christmas music. This is what I want to do.'”
“So for me to see it in my own children is both exhilarating…and mortifying at the same time!” she laughs.
To learn how Elizabeth became a full-time Christmas artist, check out her spoken-word album-slash-memoir, The Queen of Christmas, on iTunes.
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.