Miranda Lambert has a softer side and she admits the holidays brings it out. “I love, love, love holidays. I mean, just, it’s my time to really be a girl,” she says. “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.”
Now that Eric Church has a family of his own, there is one family tradition from when he was growing up that he would like to carry forward in his family, and that is Christmas breakfast. Eric explains, “My grandmother, when she was alive, would always come over, and every year she would bring this Christmas story, and some of them were gut-wrenching. I’m not going to lie to you. They were just heart tugging stories about people … about a Christmas miracle, who had something happen to them; something magical for Christmas that had turned life around…whether it was a homeless person, or just anything. And she would always look all year long and find this story, and then we would have breakfast and she would read it, and it was just our family and we’ve carried that on.” Eric’s mom took over the tradition of finding the Christmas breakfast story after his grandmother passed away and he says his wife Katherine will do the same for his family. He says although some of the stories were real tear-jerkers that just ripped your heart out, it was always good to hear them to put things in perspective and remember how fortunate he is every day.
Keith Urban always enjoyed unique Christmases as a child because while it’s winter here in the U.S., it’s summertime in Australia, where he is from, so that meant his family would often spend Christmas at the beach. “The four of us – my brother and me and Mum and Dad – would all go to the beach, and there’d be families everywhere and we’d take a lunch with us. And a lot of times, we’d take a lot of the presents with us and we’d open ‘em up either on the beach or in the backseat of the car; usually in the car because we couldn’t wait ‘til we got to the beach.” Keith recalls that probably one of his favorite presents he got on one of those beach trips was a yellow Tonka truck when he was about six years old.
Darius Rucker’s kids are 16, 10 and 7 and he says his Christmas is spent like a lot of families in America. “Christmas at the Rucker house is pretty laid-back,” says Darius. “Our kids wake up early – real early – and open their gifts and we hang out, have breakfast, go to church, come home and PLAY, play with toys and hang out and see family who comes by, and we go to see family. It’s just a pretty normal, fun Christmas Day.” Also like in a lot of households Darius admits he doesn’t wrap any of the presents. “I buy it and go, ‘Honey, wrap this!’ I don’t wrap, and it definitely doesn’t look like Dillards’ [wrapping]. It would be frumpy is what it would be. [laughs]”
The guys in Rascal Flatts are all dads and so for them Christmas time is all about their kids and their families. Joe Don Rooney is especially excited about this Christmas because it will be the first time his immediate family of four will get to do a little celebrating on their own before the rest of the family rolls into town. “For me this year, having a little baby, Rocky, she’s 15 months old and having Jagger who’s three and a half, and Tiffany and I, we’re just gonna sit at the house and just chill out,” says Joe Don. “You know, it’s gonna be really good to be home and to have nothing to do but just love on each other and bring in the New Year. And we are gonna fly our families in on Christmas Day. We’re gonna spend Christmas Eve just the four of us at the house, which will be really fun, first time ever. And then Christmas day the family will all get in and we’ll ring in the New Year with our family, so I’m looking so forward to this Christmas.” Jay and his wife Allison will celebrate with their one year old daughter Madeline, and Gary will spend the holidays with all of his girls – his wife, Tara, and daughters Brittany 11 and Brooklyn 7.
Reba and her family love celebrating all aspects of Christmas. Before they open their gifts they remember the reason for the season by singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, and Reba says, “Narvel’s mom, Gloria Blackstock, makes a cake for Jesus for his birthday.” But Reba also loves to enjoy Santa and the gift-giving aspect of Christmas. “It is Jesus’ birthday and he gets so many gifts,” says Reba, so “Santa Claus and Jesus has gotten together and Jesus is sharing his gifts and Santa Claus is distributing to all the good little boys and girls.”
When Brantley Gilbert talks about spending the holidays with his family that includes a whole lotta people. Brantley’s parents are divorced but he says he’s close with his dad and he’s definitely a mama’s boy. Plus he loves spending time with his little brother. Then there’s the extended family he’s built, which includes, “the guys I ride bikes with. We’re inseparable. I wouldn’t trade one of ‘em for the world. You know I have a really big family and I value that a lot. Even the people from Valory, since we’ve been with them, I mean, they’re family now too. I mean, once we’re in business together, we’re family. (Laughs)” But Brantley loves having a big family that he’s close to, and one way or another, he’ll be spending the holidays with his “family.”
Martina McBride grew up in Kansas with her three siblings, Martin, Steve and Gina, and she remembers one tradition that happened every morning in their household on Christmas morning. “When we were growing up, one of our traditions was, well, it’s really Santa Claus’s tradition, but Santa Claus would cover the presents with a blanket. A white blanket. So when we’d come down on Christmas morning or come in on Christmas morning, we couldn’t just see it immediately. And so we had to wait for my dad to do the big reveal of all the presents that Santa brought.” Nowadays Martina enjoys her own family traditions and celebrating the holidays with her husband John and their three daughters, Delaney, who will be 17 on December 22nd, Emma who is 13 and 6-year-old Ava.
The Band Perry call Greenville, Tennessee home, and no matter where their career takes them throughout the year, every Christmas morning you will find them in Greenville at the General Morgan enjoying their traditional Christmas brunch. Neil Perry explains, “It seems like everybody from town comes in there. And everyone just has a great time. It’s like a big family reunion in our town. And I’ll never forget the first year we went there, we were sitting in the library room and it starts snowing right outside the window. It was just like from a movie. It was amazing.” So Kimberly says to this day they make sure they’re home for Christmas and, “We always load up our parents and our grandmother and we always sit at the same table every year and just make a morning of it.”
It’s rumored that Taylor Swift will be among the female singing superstars who will grace a future cover of Vogue magazine. Fashonista.com is reporting that Taylor will appear on the February cover, although all Vogue representatives will say is, “We don’t comment on future cover speculation.” Taylor appeared on the cover of Teen Vogue in the past and she was spotted with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at the Rodarte Spring 2012 show at Fashion Week.