Check out Christmas stories from Cam, Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs, Tyler Farr, Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert, Chase Rice, Jake Owen, Brad Paisley, Seth Ennis, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Young.
CAM
Cam shares which holiday traditions from her youth, that she’d like to carry over into adulthood. (:33)
“Once my sister and I started getting old enough, past Santa Clause, we open our gifts on, or at least we open some of the gifts on Christmas Eve, which is really fun because I hate waiting. (laugh) So, that part I really like doing and I like that tradition, and I think my parents are actually moving to the ranch that my grandparents owned for a long time down in Ocean Side so were gonna have, I’m hoping we can have Christmas there but my grandmother would always tie red bandanas on the tree and have a little cowboy hat on top so yeah that would be kind of cute to do.”
Native California Cam shares her favorite thing about Christmas in Nashville. (:09)
“Christmas obviously is wonderful cause Nashville, unlike where I’m from in California, we don’t get any snow, so every now and then we get snow here in Nashville and that’s so romantic.”
KENNY CHESNEY
Kenny Chesney talks about one of his favorite Christmas songs from his childhood where he actually got to meet and be friends with the singers. (:26)
“Growin’ up in the South, I can just remember hearin’ that a lot. I mean, every Christmas, you heard Alabama. You heard Randy Owen singing ‘Christmas in Dixie.’ And it was just one of those songs that…you know, my hometown radio station played every year. And I just always remember lovin’ that song, and then I got into the music business and was able to get to know Randy and Mark [Herndon], Teddy [Gentry], and Jeff [Cook]. They just mean so much to me.”
Kenny Chesney recalls his contribution to a school Christmas play. (:23)
“I think one time I held the star, you know, and did it behind them. You know, I didn’t…never did show my face. I was holding the star going through the night. That’s all I did. I remember doing that one year. But all my other buddies was Joseph and Mary and all that stuff. I never did, really, get out on stage that much. Never really did sing in the Christmas play and…no, I was pretty scared to get up there then!” (laughs)
LUKE COMBS
Luke Combs describes what he loves about the holiday season. (:18)
“You know what I love more than, more than the presents and stuff is; cause I grew up in the mountains. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. I was born in Ashville, went to college in Boone which is even more in the mountains. So I love, and I love the snow and the decorations man, I’m into that, like that, like it gets me in the mood for the season and stuff.”
Luke Combs says what he loves about the holidays has changed over the years. (:47)
“When I was a little kid I was huge into Christmas morning you know. Guilty of having only child syndrome, but as of late I like getting stuff for my parents and just hanging out with them, and just hanging out with family dude I appreciate that time so much because it’s so few and far between tight now and everyone’s like ‘you know we miss ya.’ Anytime my family gets together they call me and it will be my and you know my aunts and uncles and grandma, and that’s always kind of bitter sweet you know cause it’s great to hear em but it’s kind of tough to know I’m the guy that’s missing out cause you can’t get that time back you know but man I do love the season but it’s really more for the family and friends and just the whole vibe of the Christmas like season I love so much.”
TYLER FARR
Tyler Farr shares his favorite holiday movies. (:12)
“Christmas Vacation, definitely. [A] Christmas Story is right up there. A new one that I like is Four Christmases. Gosh, that’s gotta be my favorite one.”
Tyler Farr recommends ground transportation…just in case your family gathering gets a little funky. (:15)
“You take the airplane, and you’re — I don’t care what happens — you are there ’til your flight’s ready to leave. And so that’s my holiday safety precaution there. When it really starts goin’ down, you gotta have a way out, so that’s my advice.”
KANE BROWN
Kane Brown shares why he’s a fake Christmas tree guy. (:27)
“I’d probably say fake just because you know, I’ve watched a lot of movies where they get a real Christmas tree and it lets like squirrels, and birds and stuff into you house and then it’s like, depending on who comes in your house with a real Christmas tree you know they could there allergies could mess up, it could mess with your allergies. A fake Christmas tree just pops out of the box and it’s just easy and simple. And I already, have hard times decorating Christmas trees as it is. So I like the ones that come out with the lights on em already.
Kane Brown remembers one of his favorite Christmas presents. (:19)
“My favorite Christmas present, I honestly say the PlayStation One when it first came out, I remember because I had a, I think I was like 11 or 12 and I had a bunch of my friends come over and they were excited that I got it so we just, we played Crash Bandicoot a lot and just hung out in my room and just played PlayStation all night.”
MIRANDA LAMBERT
Miranda Lambert shows-off her softer side during the holidays. (:41)
“I love, love, love holidays. I mean, just, it’s my time to really be a girl. And I grew up, you know, with all the decorations and cookin’, and I get really domestic during holidays. And it’s kind of weird ’cause it’s so opposite of who I am on stage. But I love to bake cookies and cook dinner for the whole family, and I have every decoration you can think of. I like to have a tree in every room, and I mean, I really…that’s my time to just get ultra-girly, and I love holidays. And also it’s my time off usually, because there’s not really a lot going on during holidays, and so I really get to spend time with people I really care about.”
CHASE RICE
Chase Rice talks about spending his first Christmas on his brand new farm. (:21)
“Bought a new house in Tennessee here, I got a farm here. So, I have family coming in for the holidays. I think Christmas and New Year’s I’ll be spending right here in Tennessee at my new farm…and I don’t plan on leaving it much. I’d like to get some time were I’m not traveling so much, I’m just hanging out at my new place. I’m sure I’ll get a little traveling in, but I travel for a living, so this year I’ll be hanging out at home in Tennessee.”
Chase Rice talks about the food options he gave his mom for Christmas at his new farm. (:27)
“There will be a lot of cooking going on Christmas…it won’t be by me though. My mom…that’s kind of her duty, I’m putting her in charge of that, cause I don’t ever get home cooked meals. So, she was laughing cause it’s the first time we’re having Christmas at my place, cause it’s a brand new farm, she said ‘well, what are you going to be feeding us this year for Christmas.’ I said ‘Alright, you gonna rely on me, I’m gonna order Jett’s pizza, and then Domino’s the next night for the second meal.’ So, they don’t want to rely on me, cause that’s what they get. I’m gonna rely on mom to cook some good home cooked meal.”
Chase Rice explains why “Hard Candy Christmas” is one of his favorite Christmas songs. (:30)
“I’d say one of my favorite Christmas songs…first of all ‘Silent Night’–that’s my favorite one, you go to church on Christmas eve, everyone’s got their candle lit singing ‘Silent Night,’ that’s a classic to me, that’s my favorite. One that I always remember, I don’t remember why this stuck but I was hunting one year with my brother on Christmas morning, we went duck hunting…back in North Carolina. And on the way home it was just that moment of ‘yeah, we’re living. we’re hunting on Christmas morning, going home, mom’s gonna be cooking, we’re gonna open the presents’ and ‘Hard Candy Christmas’ by Dolly Parton played. So, I love Dolly’s ‘Hard Candy Christmas’.”
Chase Rice lists some of his favorite holiday movies. (:14)
“I’m a big fan of Elf. I know it’s not a classic yet, it’s not old enough I guess to be a classic, but one that I grew up on was Home Alone. Huge Home Alone fan, but I’m also a big Will Ferrell guy, so when he came out with Elf I thought that was hilarious.”
Chase Rice shares his favorite Christmas gift from when he was a kid. (:47)
“I’d say my favorite gift I ever got was one Christmas…I don’t remember expecting it, I don’t remember how old I was…I was pretty young. We opened all our gifts, and what my dad would always do, he’d have a letter…it’d be like in the tree or something, and so we’d open the letter and it’d be a clue to the next clue, so we’d go all over the house trying to figure out where our big gift was for that year. I remember it was December in Florida, I grew up there til I was 11. So, the final clue was something about the porch outside. So, we’d go to the porch outside, and I remember it being so cold that there was actually frost on the ground. In Florida that’s pretty rare, but it didn’t stop us. We ran all the way out to the middle of the yard where a big massive trampoline was. So we were jumping on the trampoline Christmas morning. That was probably one of the coolest gifts that I can remember.”
JAKE OWEN
Jake Owen says that “White Christmas” was a holiday fantasy where he grew up. (:27)
“Where I grew up in Florida, we didn’t have snowy white Christmases like you hear about. You know, it’s kind of weird. You grow up, and Christmas is always portrayed as this cold and snow-white (singing) ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,’ all that stuff, and it’s like, I never got that. I never saw that growin’ up. I had palm trees, and it was always 72 or 75 degrees and sunny on Christmas Day where we were from, and you didn’t get to wear the Christmas sweaters and stuff like that. It was like, we didn’t have that.”
SETH ENNIS
Seth Ennis admits that this Christmas is the first one that’s he’s excited about in a long time. (:36)
“This is the first year that I’ve been super excited about Christmas in a long time. There’s like this; I was talking with somebody about this the other day, there’s this awkward transition between like when you graduate from high school and your not necessarily like there with your family at Christmas like for the whole time, or they get you all excited about it and do all this stuff, and then your just coming home for Christmas you know what I mean. There’s that awkward phase where like where at least for me like you kind of get depressed about it your like man Christmas isn’t what it used to be. But then I think once you get past that little like, it’s a dark place, dark vibes, but once you get past that place I think I’ve like now I’m super excited about going home and seeing everybody again so.
BRAD PAISLEY
Brad Paisley remembers trying to catch Santa. (:26)
“One year I tried to figure out — it was about fifth or sixth grade, I think I was startin’ to…oh no, it was third or fourth grade — I was startin’ to get the hint that maybe there wasn’t a Santa Claus…which there is, by the way. But I wanted to prove it once and for all, so I stuck a tape recorder, pressed record, stuck it behind the Christmas tree, and left it on hoping that I would hear whoever was gonna place those presents there…and I forgot to plug it in.”
Brad Paisley really gets into the holiday rush as a last-minute shopper. (:33)
“I’m pretty last-minute. Most guys are, I think, are like me. You just don’t invest enough, you don’t think ahead and plan it. I really do end up somewhere like the mall or something on the 24th. It’s a shame. It’s really a waste of what should be a fun day, ’cause you know, here I am scrambling around going, ‘Oh, I think they’ll like that.’ They may have never heard of it, and I don’t know what it is necessarily, but let’s buy it! And I could give it to somebody. (laughs) You end up buying all these things, and it’s just a waste.”
Eight-year-old Brad Paisley actually had his mind set on other Christmas gifts the year he got his first guitar from his grandfather. (1:06)
“That’s just like my kids now and any other kid. Your priorities are…all they care about, I know, is the right toy. They get obsessed with a certain toy. They might get into Batman or Cars or Transformers, and for those weeks where that is the focus, they save-up a little money, or when they have a birthday or anything come up, all that matters is one strange thing. They’ll get it in their mind that they need a certain Transformer, you know, that they need Starscream — and that’s a lot like me. I’m that way. I mean, I get obsessed with things, and maybe that’s why I have such a good work ethic. I think somebody who’s obsessive that way can really work hard. But for me, at eight years old, it was, you know, the Millennium Falcon or Battlestar Galactica or something. It wasn’t a guitar. I knew I was getting a guitar ’cause he had told me he was gonna do that, but, you know, I was not that excited about it.”
CARRIE UNDERWOOD
Carrie Underwood shares a special holiday memory from her childhood. (:19)
“Whenever I was younger when my grandmother was still alive we would all go to her house and open a few presents there. And we would all go to the nursing home and sing Christmas carols and pass out little bags of goodies to all the patients there. So that something that you know I’ll always remember.”
Carrie Underwood predicts what her son will remember about the holidays when he’s old. (:35)
“I think the thing that he’ll grow up knowing will be the travel, will be like we go to one set of grandparents then we go to the other set of grandparents and the next year it will be like flipped. So I think that’s probably what he’ll remember the most and not so much moms cooking until, god I hope he doesn’t remember moms cooking. I’m not bad but I’m really not, I’m not great either. But yeah I mean just the effort to go see family. That’s what I want him to know and he’ll know his grandma Karen’s cooking for sure. That will be the cooking because she’s a really good cook.
Carrie Underwood recalls “The First Noel” as an easy song to learn when she was little. (:37)
“I remember singing ‘The First Noel,’ like, in our church, our little children’s church choir (laughs), and that’s one of those songs that you know ’cause there’s not a lot of words goin’ on (laughs), you know, anybody can sing along…’Noel’…you know, it’s just one of those that everybody can — whether you know what it means or not — and I just remember as a kid singing it and having no clue what it meant. I just knew I didn’t have to remember a whole lot to be able to sing it. And now that I’m older and can put a prettier touch on it, and actually sit back and think about it, and it’s just one of those that has a different meaning to me as an adult.”
Carrie Underwood says that “O Holy Night” is her favorite Christmas carol. (:15)
“‘O Holy Night’ — it’s my favorite Christmas song. I mean, it just talks about the grandness of that night, and it’s just, it’s very powerful. And it’s powerful singing it, and to me, it’s always been very powerful listening to it.”
Carrie Underwood talks about the magic of “Do You Hear What I Hear.” (:23)
“It’s very magical…and it also talks about things that, as a child, you would understand, such as ‘dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite.’ Or ‘voice as big as the sea’ — stuff that all kids know. So it’s a really good story. It has a lot of good visuals with it. It’s just one of those that it’s just fun to sing — it’s really nice, it brings a smile to my face when I sing it.”
Carrie Underwood loves the traditional Christmas songs. (:08)
“When I think of Christmas, you know, I’m a very traditional person. I love traditional hymns. I love traditional Christmas songs. It’s just…it’s what makes me think of Christmas.”
Carrie Underwood remembers a great gift — and one that still has her wondering. (:11)
“I remember gettin’ a Teddy Ruxpin when I was little, and I just thought that that was the coolest thing ever. I got a tent one year, too. I don’t really know what that was about. I don’t quite remember asking Santa for a tent.”
CHRIS YOUNG
Chris Young loves Christmastime. (:16)
“Christmas is definitely my favorite time of year, like everybody has their favorite holiday, and some people like the summer…I’ve always liked when it’s cold outside, just, since I was a kid. And Christmas is one of those times where that’s the one time of year I block off. I mean, I have to be home for Christmas.”
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 is a big gift giver during the holidays. (:19)
“I go overboard every year. Every year I get yelled at by the rest of my family, and every year after that I proceed to not care and go overboard again, because you know like I said it’s my favorite time of the year, and as long as I can, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to make sure everyone has a great Christmas over at my house when it comes to that at least.”
Chris Young shares that “Home Alone” is a Christmas favorite. (:20)
“Probably one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies is ‘Home Alone.’ It’s just got everything. It has the season in it, it has action in it. Especially when I was a kid. I remember watching it going man he’s got a zip line coming out of the house! I just think that movie for me…is one I have to watch every year at Christmas time. I have to.”
Chris Young remembers his favorite holiday TV movie. (:18)
“I think something that comes on pretty much every year that just screams my childhood at Christmas time was the claymation Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. I was actually scared of the abominable snowman when I was a little kid, not anymore but I think that was one of those things that…that movie, for me, signifies Christmastime.”
Chris Young recalls a cherished holiday memory from his childhood. (:38)
“One of my favorite Christmas memories was driving around Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where I grew up, every year with my parents and my sister looking for Christmas lights. We always knew there were a couple houses, one in particular, that were always going to have a lot of lights but then once you had seen those couple of houses you’d kind of scour different neighborhoods looking for other people that they had just started that Christmas tradition of putting stuff up in the yard or decorating any part of the house. I think that was one thing we did every year that there was Christmas music going on in the background and I was with my family. It was just really, really special and a cool time for us to hang out and be together.
Chris Young remembers a holiday tradition that he got to relive several times thanks to the family pet. (:14)
“You know, a lot of people have the family tradition around Christmas of decorating the tree but at least for a couple of years we had a tradition of redecorating the tree because we had an inside cat that liked to undecorate it. So I think most of those years we probably redecorated the tree 3 or 4 times.”