"It's hard to write because every day, you work and work and work, and the next day, you go, 'This song is terrible,' " Cole says from her Toronto home. She tells a story about Tom Waits' keeping only one out of 14 songs he writes, and she finds that encouraging (in 1995, Cole released an excellent album of Waits songs).

Cole's last album, 2007's Holly Cole, was the first to include a composition of her own. When you have established yourself as a subtle and sexy interpreter of classics from Rodgers & Hart, Lerner & Loewe, and Irving Berlin, from Lennon & McCartney, Joni Mitchell, and Brian Wilson, the songwriting bar is set high, and Cole found it "intimidating" to record her own songs.

"If I'm bookended by Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin, I better be pretty happy with the tune. That's the stark reality of it all," she says with a laugh.

But she's written a few new tunes that are contenders for an album (as is a Nick Drake song), and she has one holiday tune definitely ready to go for this tour. Named after the length of her Christmas vacation when she was a kid in the Maritimes, it's called "Thirteen Days."

"It's about witnessing everyone around me going crazy - my mom's stuffing the turkey and my dad's underneath the tree and my aunties and uncles are going shopping - and all I've got to do is sit in the snow and wait to eat and get presents."

Cole admits she likes "to poke a stick at Christmas a little bit," but she's serious about holiday fun, eager to sing swinging jazz tunes with a new band (featuring reed-player Colleen Allen and her longtime pianist Aaron Davis), and eager to see if "Snowball Fight" turns out a keeper.