For longtime Airdrie resident Chah Noh Vél, Christmas has always held a shimmer of wonder. Now, she’s bottling that feeling in her newest original release, Psst, It’s Christmas Time — a warm, nostalgic holiday song born from poetry, memory and a deep love of storytelling.
Noh Vél, who has called Airdrie home for 30 years, has been singing for 23 of them. Music entered her life early.
“As a child, I was always playing pretend, dancing, and singing around in my own little world, so my mom put me in singing lessons,” she says.
That spark ignited a lifelong passion that continues to evolve in unexpected ways.
While she identifies her musical style as pop, her creative influences have grown broad over the years. In 2019, a new source of inspiration found her: poetry.
“I got interested in poetry and from there I began to write my own poems. (Although, I did not dare call them poems at first. I felt too fresh into writing and insecure about them to even dare),” she says.
“Over time, I eventually started to love some of the ‘poems’ I came up with. I surprised myself.”
Those poems became lyrics, and lyrics became songs. Today, she has enough writing to fill a poetry book, and she is nearly finished two manuscripts about Midas and Cupid with more on the way.
“Naturally, I loved how this improved my lyric writing as well and made it that much more fun!” she adds.
That joy is unmistakable in Psst, It’s Christmas Time, a song she wrote, arranged, and produced herself using her keyboard’s full range of instruments. The song’s inspiration is rooted in both innocence and emotional depth.
“My inspiration for Psst, It’s Christmas Time was simply to capture the magical, wondrous feeling of waking up on Christmas morning as children (or even our inner child as adults),” says Noh Vél.
The song also celebrates “the value of intangible gifts such as stories, or words, and getting to be with the one you love… every day with them (or every Christmas morning) is like a new gift.”
She also wanted to give people more options of festive songs to listen to this time of year.
“Although I love them, I think we all wish there were more new Christmas songs during the holidays in stores and at parties,” she adds.
Whether shopping for the perfect gift for your special someone or spending time with friends and family at a gathering, Noh Vél says Christmas is about connection.
“Christmas is also about magic, wonder and acknowledging the importance of slowing down to give time and attention to loved ones.”
Noh Vél is currently a full-time university student studying psychology, but her studies have not slowed down her creative work. Another original song, Kissing In The Headlights, is available on Spotify, and she has many more written and waiting for the right moment.
To hear Psst, It’s Christmas Time, click here or follow Noh Vél on Instagram, or YouTube and don’t miss her curated holiday playlist of the same name.
