Our Story

The Family Carol Co. began with a Christmas tradition.

Growing up, one of my favourite parts of Christmas was gathering around the piano with family and friends and singing carols together. Every December, the Edmonton Journal would print Christmas songs in its back pages, and we would keep them throughout the holiday season for our gatherings around the piano — familiar songs, familiar voices, everyone joining in.

There has always been something a little magical to me about singing with other people. I loved school choir, singing with friends on the school bus, and any excuse to make music together. These days, hearing my own kids sing at their school concerts is still one of my favourite things — and I’ll inevitably be the one crying while everyone sings. Every time. I sing professionally too, but some of the musical moments I love most have nothing to do with performing.  I’m still the person wondering whether we could all just start singing together in the middle of the mall.

Years later, with a family of my own, I found myself wanting to create that same kind of tradition at home. But instead of loose sheets of paper or lyrics pulled up on a phone, I imagined something beautiful enough to become part of Christmas itself — a book that could become part of a family's Christmas for years, gathering memories along the way.

That idea became The Little Book of Christmas Carols.

Created for real family gatherings — not perfect performances — it’s a collection of beloved Christmas carols designed to be passed around the room, sung from, written in, and brought out again each December.

And maybe that’s part of what makes Christmas carols so special. We aren’t only singing songs from our own childhoods, or even our parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods. Some of these songs have been sung for hundreds of years. There’s something deeply beautiful about adding our own voices to that long line of people who have gathered and sung them before us — and knowing that, perhaps, the people we love will keep singing them long after us.

Sing often. Sing imperfectly. Sing together.

— Chloe Albert
Founder, The Family Carol Co.