Brad Paisley Talks Bringing Holiday Magic To Life On New Christmas Album, ‘Snow Globe Town’

For Brad Paisley, the holiday season means getting to reconnect with loved ones, slow down and make memories to last a lifetime. That warmth and comforting spirit is exactly what he wanted to capture in his second-ever Christmas album, Snow Globe Town.

Among the 16 tracks, fans will find eight new songs written by Brad as well as his take on some beloved Christmas classics that have filled the homes of those who celebrate for decades.

Creating a Christmas album wasn’t originally in Paisley’s plans for this year. However, when Hallmark asked him to write two new songs to perform Hallmark’s upcoming holiday film, A Grand Ole Opry Christmas, he suddenly felt the call to expand that request into a full project.

“If you had asked me what my next project was in July, I would’ve told you, ‘well, I’ve got these songs I’m writing, so sometime next year we’ll probably put an album out or something.’ I didn’t know I was doing a Christmas album,” he told Country Now and other outlets. “It was around that time that Hallmark approached and…they had already asked about being a part of this Opry movie. And I said, sure. And then they had asked if I would write a song, and then they asked if I would write three songs, and then they asked if I had anything else. And they said, if you’re going to do an album or if you feel like doing a Christmas album, it’s a great time because we’re going to tie in all of these promotions and we can work with you on it.”

The country singer/songwriter first got to work on the three songs Hallmark had requested, resulting in the creation of “Leave The Christmas Lights On,” “Falling Just Like The Snow,” and “Counting Down The Days,” which became the official anthem of Hallmark Channel’s 16th annual Countdown To Christmas event.

He leaned into that flowing creativity and suddenly found himself with a total of 16 tracks and a title inspired by the magical picturesque setting of Franklin, TN in the wintertime.

“So the next thing you know, it went from cutting a few songs for this Hallmark thing to writing a bunch, including the title track, which was the idea of my co-writer Clint Lagerberg. He’s like, ‘Franklin is this snow globe town.’ It’s literally, if you look at downtown Franklin this time of year, it is, I mean, it looks like they just shook it up and it’s got the tree in the middle of the town square, and every shop has lights and it’s magic.”

Then he started to pull from some of his real-life holiday experiences, like the problems of the Elf on the Shelf in his home, which inspired the lighthearted track “That Crazy Elf (On The Shelf).” Then there’s tracks like “Last Year” that capture the more bittersweet side to the holidays when you realize some loved ones are no longer around for the family gatherings.

“Last year we had 21 people here on the farm, and that’s a big deal to get to be together. The longer time goes, we’ve lost family members that don’t get to be here. Now in that sense, you realize these are really these little time capsules that we make every time we do these memories and these houses and family gathers…There’s a song on here that is that to me. And that really is the bittersweet side of it,” Paisley explained.

He went on to not that “Last Year” was originally recorded by Kelleigh Bannen for another Hallmark movie called Sister Swap: Christmas in the City, that Paisley’s wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley and sister, Ashley Williams previously starred in. This time, Paisley wanted to add his voice to the song alongside Bannen’s so that he could sing about the personal story that first inspired it.

“What I really wrote it about was I wrote it about my wife’s cousin, Steven. They’re from North Carolina, and he and his wife and his son would come in and stay here. And it was Christmas when they arrived because their son was around the same age as our kids. And Steven passed away in December,” Paisley explained.

“And that Christmas…was the worst year. He was young when he died, he died of an infection. He was 40. He had a five-year-old, and the rest of the family and his wife and son still came here for Christmas. I just said, ‘you’ve got to come here. You can’t not be with us. And we somehow got through that. But that’s what that song is about, which is essentially, sometimes it’s about the memories you already made and not about this year. And so I cherish the memories.”

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For the Christmas classics, the West Virginia native drew on past holiday seasons, choosing to record the songs that bring back his fondest memories and get him fully in the festive spirit. But he also wanted to make sure that these weren’t just standard covers, he wanted to add his own style to each one.

Fans will find holiday staples like “The Christmas Song,” “My Favorite Things,” “The First Noel,” “O Holy Night” “A Marshmallow World,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”

Everything from the production of the songs to the sequencing and even the cover art was carefully thought out by Brad Paisley. Fans can hear a few of the new tracks in the new Nashville based Hallmark movie that’s set to premiere Thanksgiving weekend, Saturday, November 29. at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel, streaming next day on Hallmark+.

The Grand Ole Opry member is set to appear in the original film alongside Nikki DeLoach, Kristoffer Polaha, and many other familiar faces from the Opry and country music.

Once he has officially reached the end of the Christmas season, Brad Paisley will get back into the headspace of preparing for his “Truck Still Works World Tour” which is extended into 2026 with a summer tour of Europe. The tour, which kicked off in May, is currently on its Canadian leg. Special guests for the tour in Europe will be announced at a later time.