Christmas 2015: Country Stars Share Christmas Traditions

Christmas is just days away. The decorations are hung, the stockings are stuffed, and families are gathering together around the world to celebrate. With family gatherings come family traditions and many of your favorite country stars are sharing their Christmas traditions.

Since many artists are out on the road for most of the year, the time they get to spend with their loved ones is tradition enough, especially for Cassadee Pope, Maddie & Tae’s Taylor Dye and Scotty McCreery.

“My family and I always like to do a Christmas Eve sort of deal where we either go to midnight mass or we gather together at someone’s house and open one present each,” Pope shared.

Dye echoes Pope’s thoughts. “One of the main reasons I love Christmas, other than just celebrating the birth of Christ, which is number one, is just spending time with my family and us all celebrating this special holiday and the special season together.”

Even American Idol winner McCreery enjoys his time off and at home with his family. “My favorite part of the holidays is spending time with family. It’s tough being on the road and not seeing them as much during the year, but the holidays is always the time you can get together as a family and just reflect on the year and spend some quality time together, you know?”

The opposite goes for Thomas Rhett and his wife, Lauren. The two are surrounded by family when they’re home in Nashville, so during their time off, they keep to themselves.

“Me and Lauren travel a bunch during the holiday, but Christmas is definitely our favorite time of the year,” Rhett shared. “So, when we got married we made a tradition that we were gonna stay at home on Christmas day. We have a lot of family in Georgia, a lot of family in Knoxville, and in Nashville, but on Christmas day we stay at home and we do our own thing. It’s just been a blast being able to create our own traditions as a married couple, and hopefully we get to keep it that way.”

For David Fanning, Sam Hunt, Ashley Campbell and Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood, it’s not just about spending time with the family… it’s what they do with them.

“Our tradition has kind of been the same forever. We always go to my grandparents’ house and kind of do a pre-Christmas event and then it’s so funny for Christmas Day. I’m in my late 20’s and my mom still wants to wake up like there’s Santa Claus,” Fanning told Sounds Like Nashville. “My sister, she would always rip through everything and I would always open up gifts one at a time and played with each gift. Christmas would be an all-day event with me because I would play with everything before I went to the next present. Nowadays, we just get together and we go to my cabin out by the lake on Christmas and mom makes really good scones and brunch. We give out gifts to each other and just kind of spend time with each other. Time is kind of valuable these days you know.”

Hunt spends the holiday with both his mom and dad’s sides of the family… they even have Santa stop by! “We get together with my Dad’s side of the family, and then for dinner, we get together with my Mom’s side and exchange gifts. Of course, myself and my brothers are well-past Santa Claus age, but Santa Claus still comes [laughs] at our house when we wake up in the morning, so that’s cool. But it’s turned into more of a, and I really appreciate the time with my family, it turns into more of a social thing now and less about the gifts and the food and all that sorta stuff.”

“My favorite Christmas tradition, and memory from Christmas past, is getting the whole family together to watch my favorite Christmas movie, Muppet Christmas Carole,” said the daughter of “Rhinestone Cowboy” Glen Campbell. “All the music in it is so good and it just reminds me that Christmas is here and all is right with the world.”

“My dad on Christmas Eve, he would actually read the Christmas Story. Very predictable, I know, but after the Christmas Story, he would always give his famous Christmas test,” Haywood explained. “He would have this long test, and he would ask us about the Wise Men and the shepherds and the entire Christmas Story. I’m gonna have to get the copy of it from him, because he never gives us the full answers. But, I’d love to get that test from him and be able to pass it along.”

Fellow Lady A members Hillary Scott and Charles Kelley’s traditions include their Christmas trees… and decorating them with the silliest ornaments they have.

“My mom, I gave her such a hard time when I was a little girl, because she went to some store and got these, it’s like snowmen with an icicle hanging down from the bottom, so I thought they were so gawdy,” Hillary said of her mom’s tree. “But you know what? Now that I’m older, I love ‘em. And if they’re not on the tree, I’m like, ‘Mama, where are they? Where are the snowmen icicle lights this year?”

Charles Kelley and is wife used to battle over the tree décor. “My mom actually sent me some of our old ornaments that we had made and stuff. We always had the cheesiest tree, but I miss it. It was always so very colorful. And with my wife, she’s very stylish and chic, and so she wanted this really chic tree, and I said, ‘Baby, I’m sorry. We’ve got to put a little color in this.’ So, I put some of my cheesy little stuff on there, and I think that’s part of Christmas. I think you have to have that, so she relented.”

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?