Who needs snow? Diana Krall has us dreaming of a green Christmas.

Diana Krall promises it will be a long time before you hear her do a Christmas duet with husband Elvis Costello.

"Maybe when we're old and on the cruise ship," Krall, 41, says with a laugh down the line from Vancouver recently to chat about her recently released holiday album, Christmas Songs.

"The Diana Krall-Elvis Costello Christmas Show," she continues, joking. "We'll be out there with our little walkers. Or some place in Hawaii on a TV show. Not yet, thank you very much.

"We laugh quite a bit because we get asked that, 'When are you going to sing together?' " she says. "We do sing together for benefits and things, but (otherwise) we're not really into that right now."

The Nanaimo-born jazz-pop singer-pianist and her British singer-songwriter husband, 10 years her senior, divide their time between homes on Vancouver Island and in New York City.

The couple -- who'll celebrate their second wedding anniversary on Dec. 5 -- spent last Christmas with Costello's mom. This year, who knows? Krall's mom succumbed to cancer in 2002 and the family is still adjusting to the holidays without her. But Krall hopes to be on Vancouver Island.

"Things became very different after my mom passed away," she says, "so we're still figuring those things out. I'm kind of an in-the-moment person you know, so I don't know, we'll see what happens.

"We got married at Christmas, too, so our wedding was very Christmas-y. It was very nice. So it's a lovely time. We just figure it out as we go."

Krall's previous record was last year's deeply personal The Girl In The Other Room, which dealt with the loss of her mother, mentors Ray Brown and Rosemary Clooney, and the joy of meeting Costello. She recorded the holiday standards for Christmas Songs in L.A. this summer with co-producer Tommy LiPuma, engineer Al Schmidt and arranger/conductor John Clayton.

It took all of a week and Krall says it was the best time she ever had making a record.

"This was the easiest record for me. The least stress. The most fun I've had in a project in a long time. Some projects are a little more intense than others, and this one was a big party and I didn't want to overthink it. I just wanted to sing songs that I've been singing since I was a little kid. And I didn't want to make any kind of statement. I just wanted to sing songs that everybody knows -- and came in and sang 'em and had big laughs and a party with my friends."

Krall, who has been making records for a dozen years, says it's the first time she can confidently say she has made a decent album.

"This record was a bit of a gift. I didn't stress about it. I just loved it. And when I heard it, I was so excited. It's a great record because it's honest, and I don't mean this from an egotistical place, not because of me, because I'm playing with the Clayton/

Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, so it's another personality.

"I've known those guys for 20 years. John (Clayton) wrote some of the arrangements for me. I loved them. I loved the band. It's swinging and fun and you've never seen so much hugging going on in the studio. It was a big love-in ... a lot of very celebratory, funny, exuberant people doing this. We had the studio all decorated in Christmas stuff and everybody laughing about that and teasing each other ... it was a big family environment."

In case you haven't figured it out, Christmas was a big deal around the Krall household. And the holidays remain precious to her.

"We had a good time at Christmas," Krall says. "We always sang and sometimes we sang Fats Waller tunes in the middle of the carols and we had to get back on track. We always had a party, and singing. And then, when I left home at 17, (the holidays) became very dear to me because I would be touring all year and travelling everywhere ... but as soon as December rolled around I knew I was going home. So it meant that I got to go and see my family and cook with my mom and for us to all be together. So it still has that meaning to me when I'm touring and running around ragged."

Krall actually released a three-song EP, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, in 1998, so this new collection was in the works for years.

"For me as a kid, I always wanted to hear Christmas music by jazz musicians, by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, people that I admired," Krall says. "So it was kind of on the books for many years for me to do this."

Krall says she already knows what her next studio album is going to be, with plans to record it in the spring and release it in the fall.

And, no, she won't be returning to the incredibly personal material, half of which she co-wrote with Costello, on The Girl In The Other Room.

"(Girl) was a very specific record that I had to do. (It was) a very personal piece that helped me get through a very, very shocking time. And this will be another time. I've got 12 tunes all ready to go. I'm pretty excited about it. And there's always a statement in there somewhere, even if it's through a standard. I find my way in there somewhere."