Dolly Parton is all about the holidays, this year and every year. The Country Music Hall of Fame member, not surprisingly, especially loves the carols that she plays, both the spiritual ones and the fun ones.
“Well, you know I love all the Christmas songs. I love the fast ones, I love the slow ones,” Parton tells People. “I love ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ but then I love ‘Rudolph’ and all of those fun things. I just love all of that.”
Parton well remembers the days of having to put on a vinyl record or listen to radio commercials to hear Christmas songs. Fortunately, those days are a thing of the past for her.
“We all have either an Alexa or Siri or one of those kinds of things,” the 78-year-old says. “I just always holler out, ‘Alexa, play holiday music for 12 hours in my house,’ or something like that, and I just like all of it.”
Parton loves more than just the music in December. She also loves the time to get together with her family, especially the food.
“[I love] the tradition of being home for Christmas, and being with family, and having all the good food and all the different dishes that different family members make, and just the music, and just all the festivities of the lights and the sounds, and everything to do with Christmas,” Parton says.
Her new cookbook, Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A Year of Meals— A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food, written with her sister, Rachel, includes many of her family-favorite dishes that always come out over the holiday season.
“I always love everything we have to do at Christmas. So many of the things we have at Thanksgiving, like the sage dressing and the giblet gravy and the mashed potatoes and the sweet potato bars,” Parton reveals. “I’m big on making a big old pot of chicken and dumplings, and everybody looks forward to that as well.”
Parton has had one of the biggest careers of any artist, in any genre, but her first commitment has always been to her family, which is why she always makes it a priority to celebrate the holidays with her loved ones.
“I love being home for Christmas, and so far I’ve missed all kinds of holidays, but to my knowledge I have never not been home for Christmas,” the East Tennessee native says.
Parton has plenty of projects heading into 2025. Her Threads: My Songs in Symphony will launch on March 20 in Nashville with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. She also recently launched her own Dolly Beauty line of cosmetics, as well as her own Dolly Wines.
Parton is also building her own Songteller Hotel in Nashville, and will have her own Hello, I’m Dolly Broadway musical, premiering in 2026. Her Dolly Parton’s Billy the Kid Comes Home for Christmas book is out now. Keep track of all of Parton’s projects at DollyParton.com.
Photo Credit: Jim Wright