Carrie Underwood rings in holidays with new special

By Jeff Pfeiffer

Fresh off a new album that debuted at No. 1 last month (Play On), singing star Carrie Underwood now shunderwoodowcases her voice in her first Christmas special. The two-hour Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special premieres on FOX Dec. 7 at 8pm ET/PT, and features Carrie performing new music from Play On, along with her previous hits and interpretations of holiday classics. Carrie is joined onstage by guests such as Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, David Cook, Kristin Chenoweth and Christina Applegate. At a recent conference call with journalists, Carrie talked a little more about the special, and her own holiday traditions.

Did you watch musical variety shows like this as a kid?
Carrie Underwood:
Well, I think I kind of just missed some of the variety stuff. I’ve seen the Mandrell sisters before, but it wasn’t something that we all gathered around to watch. I kind of missed that era and I’m glad to see that there’s other people doing their stuff, too, and I think it’s really great family programming. It was a lot of fun to tape and I think we ended up with a great show. And I’m glad to see that that format may be catching on again.

Have you thought about recording a Christmas album?
I was lucky enough to record a few songs last year. I was so busy last year, I didn’t actually have time to do a full album, but I would love to. I love classic Christmas songs. They have been around forever and everybody knows them and I like doing things very traditional as far as Christmas songs go. … I just think there’s so many things that are just perfect the way they are. When you get some good classics, of course, you can put a little bit of yourself in there. If we all sang the same song the exact same way, that would be really boring and nobody would want to hear anybody else sing it. But I love to keep things as traditional as possible and I love strings and I love to just keep them traditional and very classy.

What was it like working with Dolly Parton on this special?
She was very nice, nice enough to come and be a part of the show. I got to sing with her and she did some stuff on her own, too. I’d never met hecarrie-dollyr before this, so I was so excited to be able to get to talk to her and obviously get to sing with her. It felt like such a special moment for me in the show to be able to perform with her. It was a dream come true. … When Dolly’s there, you just step out of the spotlight; let her do her thing because no matter how hard you try, she’s going to steal the spotlight. It’s great. It’s the way it should be.

Do you perform with David Cook and Brad Paisley on the show?
[David and I] sing together, which the first time we sang together was last year — was it last year? it seems like a long time ago — at the opening in Disney World of the American Idol attraction. They asked us to sing together and we did and it was like, hey, this is really good. This feels really good. So we kind of rocked out for a minute and got to sing together again and I think, again, it’s probably one of my favorites on the show, because I just love him to death.

[Brad] is on the special. We get to do a song together, and he performs one of his own. We had to do it in a different way, though, because he couldn’t actually be in L.A. for the taping, so we did something kind of cool to bring two locations together.

Can you talk about the skits with Kristin Chenoweth and Christina Applegate in the special?
Well, they were great. I think it’s a lot easier to do [funny] stuff like that when you have two people around you that actually know what they’re doing. And they both have great comedic timing. Like I said, they know what they’re doing. So we ended up doing a medley of sorts of throwback songs, like the ’50s, ’60s vibe with matching pink dcarrie-kristin-2resses and beehives. It was just a lot of fun being around them and they’re great. They showed up and they were willing to do whatever we needed them to do. Three blondes, we had fun together.

What songs are you going to sing on the special?
I hate to give away too much information, but another one of my favorite moments, of course, is singing with Dolly. We kind of did one of her classics that many should recognize, but it was an amazing moment in the show and she was so great. I thought we sounded really good together. Like I said, it was a dream come true for me.

Do you have a favorite Christmas song?
Oh, man, I love things like O Holy Night. I think that’s probably my favorite, but Little Drummer Boy, and things like that [too]. I have those on my records. They’re just the things that really put you in a Christmas frame of mind.

What were your holidays like as a child?
Growing up … basically we don’t really have too many traditions as a family. But we would always celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Of course, Santa would come on Christmas morning. But we had records and it wasn’t even any specific name, artist. It was just like a choir or something. We had these old records that I would always play for Christmas. I have them now. Thank God, my mom didn’t throw them away. I have them now and I still like to play them. It makes me think about Christmas.

What was the best Christmas present you’ve received?
Oh, I don’t know. I remember when I was little, I wanted a TV so bad. There wasn’t a box underneath the tree big enough to have a TV in it. So I was kind of getting disappointed, the closer it got to Christmas because there was never another box that was under there that was big enough. And my mom had wrapped up the remote and it was like whatever, the smallest TV you could possibly get, it was my TV. I think I had that sucker until I was like — they might even still have it at the house, to be honest — probably 15, 20 years old, but that was really awesome to like a 7-year-old girl.

What are your holiday plans this year?
I’ll just be with my family. We don’t really have that many traditions, but we are together and that’s the most important thing. We eat ourselves silly and try, of course, to remember the true meaning of Christmas and celebrate the birth of Jesus.

When you “eat yourself silly” over the holidays, do you have a favorite holiday food?
Goodness, my mom always makes like a broccoli cheese casserole and we do like potato casseroles and stuff like that. Just whatever is meat-free I can load on my plate, I’m there. I am not a picky eater. I just love food.

Do you still watch American Idol?
I will always have just the biggest love for American Idol as a participant and as a fan. Now it’s so crazy for me to watch and think, “Oh my gosh, I was on that show.” But I love the people on that. I love the people working on it. I love to go back and talk to the contestants and I vote, too, just like everybody else. I sit out there and I vote, so it’s great to understand being a fan and being a participant. I get to see both sides.

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Photo credits: Michael Becker/FOX