Chris Janson On Passing Down the Selfless Spirit of Christmas

For Janson, the season isn't about presents... it's about being present.

Written by Chris Parton
Chris Janson On Passing Down the Selfless Spirit of Christmas
Chris Janson performs “Run, Run Rudolph” at the 2019 “CMA Country Christmas” special filmed at Belmont’s Curb Center in Nashville, Tennessee. “CMA Country Christmas” will air on Tuesday, December 3 on ABC.

Chris Janson is a big fan of Christmas, but for him the holiday isn’t about presents under the tree or time away from the road. Instead it’s all about creating “Good Vibes,” and he knows just how to do it.

“I just really truly enjoy family, I really do,” Janson tells Sounds Like Nashville. “That’s what I loved when [Kelly and I] got married. My family is great, okay, but let me take it a step further. Her family is the greatest. So getting married, I was able to have a big family again. I just love that. That’s the best thing.”

The Janson household now includes four kids (two older step children and two little ones of his own), and you might think a guy who loves Christmas and his family so much would have a long list of traditions to uphold. But that’s not really how it works for the energetic country star. For as much of a fireball as he is onstage, Janson just wants to go with the flow at the end of the year.

“I just want to do whatever all of them want to do, honestly,” he explains. “Especially now that the older ones have boyfriends and girlfriends and it’s weird and cool at the same time. The little ones are still immersed in what the holiday traditions are really about, and it’s great to share that. The bottom line is, we have two older helpers now to help us with the two young ones who are just bouncing off the walls all the time. So it’s really blessing.”

There is at least one thing Janson would like to pass on to the kids, though, and that’s the spirit of giving. He tries to model that value in a big way by doing things like helping Bass Pro Shops donate fishing gear to kids in Leipers Fork, Tennessee. But there are also smaller lessons to teach, and Janson says he and Kelly jump at every chance they get.

“We try really hard to be great parents and as parents, we want to give our kids everything we didn’t have, and it’s a really hard thing to do,” Janson says. “There are so many people who need so much more, so that’s what we try to do. We try to do giving trees in malls and any restaurants we see, and that’s fun. Giving is so fun. Especially when you give with your kids, it’s really rewarding and so, we just try to do what we feel is right in our hearts as far as gifts are concerned. … We try to make it about what matters.”

Chris Janson has a whole year of tour dates lined up for 2020, and his romantic new single “Done” out now.