While we always want to remember the true spirit of the season, there’s no denying the Christmas-morning excitement of children to find what Santa has left under the tree — and that was certainly true for Chris Young. For Chris and his sister Dot, it was that mix of anxious, happy agony that defined those moments before the wrapping paper could finally hit the floor. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Chris Young has enjoyed a truly amazing career year, with an array of accomplishments too numerous to mention, though a few 2011 happenings include the release of his third album, NEON…two number-one singles (now four in a row!) including “Tomorrow” and the history-making “Voices”…a Gold album for The Man I Want to Be…a Gold Digital Single for “Tomorrow”…on the road with Jason Aldean‘s My Kinda Party tour…a CMA Awards nomination and performance…the cover of Country Weekly… performances on Good Morning America and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson…two award wins at the American Country Awards, where he also performed…and, well, it’s clear why Chris has a lot to feel good about. Looking back on the year, Chris tells us that he feels very blessed, both professionally and personally. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)     
• Chris is on the radio now with “You,” the second big hit from his NEON album.

  Chris Young remembers his childhood Christmas mornings. (:38)
“My parents pretty much just knew to wake up at six in the mornin’, five in the morning, like as soon as the sun comes up, ’cause that was the rule. My parents told me, they were like, ‘Okay, now you know you can’t come down and open presents until the sun comes up.’ As soon as I saw pretend light through my window, I was downstairs, and I was goin’, ‘Can we…I wanna go open stuff!’ And of course, then my parents did the whole thing of ‘Okay, wait, we’ve got to videotape you.’ So they would make us wait, and we would start getting all of our presents into piles for us to open. So, it was definitely…we were just like every other kid at Christmas — me and my sister both. We went nuts.” 

  Chris Young looks back on 2011 and feels very blessed, professionally and personally. (:42)
“The past couple years have been following the same trend, and it’s like, every year I cannot believe some of the stuff that we’ve done. And this year was multiply that a couple times. It’s just been an absolutely amazing year, not only from the music side of things and what I’ve been able to accomplish there, but just that I’ve still got my family. My dad’s doin’ really, really well after kind of fighting through lung cancer a couple years ago, and my mom and dad are doin’ well. My sister’s doin’ well. You can’t really ask for a lot more than that. Everything is…it’s a lot of work, but everything’s just really clickin’ for me right now, and it’s been absolutely amazing and a year to remember.”