Found in the Inbox: Hanne Leland Makes Room for Absence at Christmas

Holiday records often arrive wrapped in a promise of togetherness. Hanne Leland’s This Time Of Year leaves room for the people who experience the season differently. An original song included on The Christmas Songs, it was promoted alongside Snowflake as a piece about missing someone during a time commonly associated with celebration. Revisited from the inbox archive, that emotional premise remains the clearest introduction.

The Christmas Songs was presented as the Norwegian songwriter’s first Christmas album, bringing together nine recordings across familiar standards and her own writing. The campaign named November 28 as its release date in the context of the 2025 mailout. Its selection included It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Blue Christmas and Winter Wonderland, creating a setting in which the originals could sit beside songs already carrying generations of seasonal associations.

Leland’s supplied comments emphasised the pleasure of interpreting established material while writing her first Christmas songs. Her stated aim combined the almost childlike excitement of the season with the more complicated emotions explored in her originals. That combination gives This Time Of Year a place within the album’s design: an opportunity for absence to be acknowledged without excluding it from a holiday collection.

The Oslo-based independent artist’s path to this project began in a different musical setting. The campaign biography describes how she secured sponsorship for her artist project and used the funding to travel to Nashville, where she spent three months recording her debut album Honest and performing at open mic nights. Later collaborations with Swedish writers and producers helped guide a gradual move from country toward pop.

Her catalogue subsequently included The Heartbreak EP, After Rain and the 2022 album The Art of Growing Up. The biography also records UK touring with Gavin James and appearances on All Saints’ comeback tour. Those experiences sit alongside a public commitment to women’s rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion and opportunities for female and non-binary songwriters, including writing camps she has organised in Oslo.

This Time Of Year brings the focus back to a smaller space: a particular feeling within a familiar season. The surrounding album offers standards, celebration and original writing, but this song’s premise allows Christmas to contain longing too. As an archive discovery ahead of another holiday season, it provides a thoughtful route into Leland’s songwriting. Her official website and streaming artist page offer places to explore the recording and the wider catalogue.

Explore the artist’s music.

Campaign information and promotional image supplied by The Sound Lab.

Hanne Leland artist profile · Round The Clock PR