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I think it's kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that's personally original and hopefully somewhat unique.

I intend to keep writing Christmas songs. There's still a lot more about Christmas that can be captured and feel like old-time Christmas. A lot of the traditions haven't been explained in song.

The whole point of me doing a Christmas record and what I centered it around was the song 'Christmas with You' from the point-of-view of the soldiers in Iraq.

Writing songs is not something I wanted to share with people for a long time. It was precious to me. I didn't want someone to crush it. I waited until I felt strong enough to take the criticism.

I love writing Christmas stories, especially of the historical variety.

Everybody loves a good Christmas song if you do it right.

It's a gift that I have and I became good at it. When I heard my first song I didn't even know that I could write songs.

Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour.

I realized that I started writing songs to make people feel how I felt, rather than just making them feel something. That's not the way I should do things.