Ashley McBryde: Her Christmas Favorites

Ashley McBryde told us recently about one of her family Christmas traditions. The Arkansas native said, "My mother and I, and my sister, if she's around, we get together and sing. We sing out of an old church hymnal. We just always end up doing that for some reason."

And yes, Ashley did reveal that she has a favorite Christmas tune or tunes. "My favorite Christmas song? Anything Karen Carpenter sang. But, probably 'Merry Christmas Darling' off that record (1978's Carpetners' Christmas Portrait)."

As for a Christmas gift, McBryde recalled one Christmas present she got as a child that brought her to tears. She said, "There was a gift I got, and I cried. I was just a little pip-squeak. I got a Teddy Ruxpin, and I thought that was the end all, be all. I still love Teddy Ruxpin."

Earlier this year, McBryde opened shows for Jelly Roll, and when I interviewed her recently, she told me about the man everyone is talking about. Ashley shared about her friend, "He's so loving and so inviting. I love being on the road with him. The culture he has created with his band, crew, and everything about that is really welcoming."

She added, "He told me my first day, 'You'll never feel more at home on any tour than you will on this tour.' And I thought at first, 'Aw, I don't know, I've toured with some really amazing tours.' He told me, 'You'll never feel more at home with any fanbase than you are with mine,' and he's right. His fan base is so diverse, and at first, when you look at a snapshot of it, you go, 'These people don't all belong under the same canopy right now,' but they do. And that feeling while you're watching a show is amazing."

McBryde did say when you go to a Jelly Roll show, you better get there early. She noted, "They show up early, and every seat is filled. If you don't show up by 4 o'clock, you're not getting in your seat by the time Jelly takes the stage. Every seat is filled."

The days before Christmas can be so much fun as we listen to all the Christmas albums and songs stowed away for a year and will again come out next Christmas.

Country stars love Christmas, as it's a time when they can come off the road and spend quality time with their families.

Lainey Wilson told us she has a Christmas album in her future, "The truth is I haven't had enough time this year to create a Christmas record, but when things start slowing down a little bit, I want to write a record for Christmas. I might cover a few, but I want to write a Christmas record."

Because December is summertime in his native Australia, Keith Urban's holiday as a kid usually involved going to the beach. He explained, "We still love going to the beach at Christmas time, as long as we're in Australia because it's like the Fourth of July. It's huge. Everybody's out. It feels very celebratory. It's in the 90s. It's crazy, but having grown up with that, it feels very natural to me."

He added, "We still had all of the same Christmas songs, so we're in like 90-degree heat with shorts and tank tops singing 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland,' and I remember getting Christmas cards of like Santa on a surfboard, so that probably explains a lot."

Blake Shelton and his wife, Gwen Stefani, have a special dish they make each Christmas. She told ET about creating new holiday family traditions with Blake and her boys.

Gwen said. "We started off by always trying to find something that wasn't a tradition -- like, let's try something different, try something new." She said that they "stumbled across" a dish called the Timpano Dome, noting that it's "basically like a lasagna" but in a dome formed either with bread or pasta." Stefani said they started the tradition a few ago, and now "that's the thing."

Gwen added that some Italians might "get mad about this" because typically there would be pasta wrapped around it, but they started doing a pizza dough because "it tastes yummy." She concluded that she might "make the dough" herself this year, which would be "a lot on Christmas day," so she may do it "the day before."

There are a handful of country stars who just can't get enough of Christmas, and as we get closer to the big day, we look at five country stars who go the extra mile to share their love for Christmas.

Brett's 2016 Christmas album Glow was so popular that he now tours each Christmas and sells out venues nationwide. His nickname is "Mr. Christmas." He told me not long ago about a Christmas favorite song, "Blue Christmas...Elvis is king, and Elvis knows how to make you feel heartbreak. Also, with this song, he combines both and just the longing to want him to have that person with you, and if you don't have that person with you, now around Christmas, it won't be the same. And it's kind of a country song in the deep depths of it, so I thought it was a perfect song for the album."

Reba starts celebrating the Christmas holiday the day after Halloween. She has released three Christmas albums in her career, and in 2021, she even starred in a Lifetime TV movie along with Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider called Christmas In Tune. In a recent interview, Reba told me about what she once got as a teen in Oklahoma for a Christmas gift. She said, "Mama would always give me and Suzy the same gift in different colors. One year, it was an overnight case, like a makeup case. Mine was blue, and Suzy's was white. Mama kept it for years underneath her vanity."

Clarkson has released two Christmas albums. Wrapped In Red came out in 2013 and the second, When Christmas Comes Around, was released in 2021. She also sings Christmas songs throughout December on her talk show. Chris Stapleton, Brett Eldredge, Trisha Yearwood, and Reba have appeared on her Christmas albums.

Dolly loves Christmas time and has released three Christmas albums so far. The country icon even has a special night each year for all her nieces and nephews. She told me about their special family event, "They come to my house, and we have cookie night every year. We have for years and years and years. I dress up like Santa Claus, like Grammy Claus. I have an elevator in my house, and I have it painted like a chimney. So I go up and get presents from upstairs, then I come down the chimney in my suit. I just can't wait to do that with them."

Carrie released a Christmas album in 2020 and recently released a deluxe version of the project. She even sang Christmas songs in her Las Vegas residency shows in December. I have talked many times with Underwood about her Christmas memories. In one of those interviews, she told me, "We would walk up and down the halls and sing Christmas carols. I mean, we sang, 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,' we sang 'Silent Night,' we sang, just all those songs that everybody knows, and it was just a really cool thing that we did. I really wish we still did it. We quit when my grandma got sick. It's really easy to forget about people during that time of year 'cause there's so much going on, and it was a really cool thing that we did. We'd go to the nursing home and bring a little Christmas cheer with us."