EDMONTON -- If Jack Skellington from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas opened a bar and hired a house band, Holly Cole would be the perfect choice.

The smoky Canadian singer has unwittingly turned into the Dark Diva of Secular Christmas - the backup spirit that would've visited Scrooge if the first three hadn't taken.

Add it up.

Cole does a full-blown Christmas tour at least every two years, selling out soft-seaters from coast to coast. She plays a two-nighter with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at the Winspear Centre starting tonight.

She's put out two Christmas albums in 10 years that represent some of her best work. Cole's latest CD, Baby, It's Cold Outside, is "the most labour-intensive record I've ever made," she says.

"I picked the tunes, arranged the tunes, sang the tunes and produced it."

She's rather good at it, too, which gets her lots of holiday work, which makes her want to do an even better job, which gets her even more Christmas gigs in a never-ending spiral of Christmas cheer Cole has come to be known for.

She doesn't want her fans - "die-hards, God bless 'em" - to hear the same old Christmas carols that some artists dash off every year as if they're making utility company Christmas cards.

"That's the problem with a lot of Christmas records," she says.

"They're just churned out. There's not a lot of care or time put into them. There's a lot of terrible ones, and there are a lot of good ones with songs that have been done over and over and over again.

"But I found a lot of interesting material.

"You just have look."

Cole wasn't born to sing Christmas music - though her parents suggested a career path when they named her - she just kind of "fell into it."

She suggests her seasonal success is due to the fact she explores the "dark" side of Christmas that isn't discussed at the dinner table.

Her selection Santa, Baby, for instance, pokes at greed, Santa and sexuality all at once.

There's the bittersweet Christmas Time is Here that evokes a bummed out Charlie Brown. A song like If We Make It Through December more or less speaks for itself.

"I think I share a sentiment that a lot of people do about Christmas, in this part of the world, anyway. It's a love-hate relationship," Cole says.

"On the one hand, there's a lot of phoniness and commerciality and there's a lot of stress in many different ways. There's stress to make the turkey on time, stress to get the perfect gift, stress over spending time with your family and you forgot how a certain person bugs you. But on the positive side, if you're a workaholic - and I am - the world stops at Christmas. You can't keep going even if you try. It arrests you. So then you're forced to do what you should be doing anyway: appreciate the people you love."

She never goes on about the true - that is, "religious," - meaning of Christmas. No songs about the Baby Jesus or nativity scenes on Holly Cole's stage.

"The Christmas shows that I do are not religious shows at all," she says.

"There are serious moments for sure, but Christmas gets a few jabs in there. I think a lot of people share that with me, but most people don't talk about it."

Ignore the dark side at your peril, Cole advises. "I think that a lot of the good stuff in life resides in our dark side - our sense of humour, our sexuality, part of our intelligence resides there. We're encouraged to neglect that in this part of the world. North America is happy cookie land.

"I think it's when we don't explore the dark side that we actually get into serious trouble. It's a denial of who we are.

"I don't mean dark meaning violent. I just mean that some of the best stuff in life that is in no way wrong or bad lives in our dark side and I think we should harness it."

A lot of folks are with her.

Seats are going fast for her concerts with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra tonight and tomorrow at the Winspear Centre.

Call 428-1414 for tickets.