While her jaw-dropping version of “Let It Go” became the anthem of 2014, Idina Menzel was quietly moving on after separating from husband Taye Diggs, recording a holiday album, headlining a Tony-nominated Broadway show… and panicking about raising her son, just like any mom.

On what inspired her to make Holiday Wishes, an album full of Christmas songs

“To be honest, my love for Christmas came when I started dating Taye. One of my fondest memories of our relationship was how we celebrated Christmas. He has a big family, so we would reserve Christmas Eve for ourselves. I wanted to be the good shiksa girlfriend.”

On how Frozen and John Travolta flubbing her name at the Oscars reset the course of her career

“It’s the best mistake that’s ever happened to me. Just having the kind of success where people might know my name—my real name! It took me a long time to stop chasing it and just embrace it.”

On starting to date again after her divorce

“I’m open to it. I just don’t have a lot of time. They’d have to meet me at, like, midnight after the show, and that’s kind of slutty, isn’t it?”

On being a single mother now and balancing her commitment to Broadway show, If/Then

“The guilt is the thing that we as women all feel, whether we stay at home or we work. There are a lot of double standards with the way the men in our lives see how we make those choices. I think there’s an accounting for how much time I spend with my son, and men don’t have to account for how much time they spend with their child. It hurts to feel that’s a judgment being made. Because we’re already judging ourselves.”

Read the full interview in the December/January issue of REDBOOK, on newsstands November 18.

All you have to do is listen to “Let It Go” once to know that Idina Menzel doesn’t hold anything back, which is at least part of the reason why we loved spending time with the musical powerhouse at her cover shoot—it also didn’t hurt that she regaled us with a tale about how she recovered from her most embarrassing moment (spoiler: It involves a wardrobe malfunction) and taught us how to sing in gibberish. When you watch this, you’ll see what we mean.