The lineup for this year’s CMA Country Christmas has been announced, and it features many of today’s reigning hitmakers, including Lainey Wilson, Ashley McBryde, Jordan Davis, Lady A, Jon Pardi, The War And Treaty, Lindsay Stirling and Zach Williams. The holiday event will be hosted by Trisha Yearwood and Amy Grant, who will each perform as well.
The lineup was first announced on social media.
It's the most wonderful time of the year! ❄️ #CMAchristmas returns Thursday, Dec. 14 on @ABCNetwork hosted by @AmyGrant and @TrishaYearwood. Join us as we celebrate the season with holiday performances by some of your favorite artists! pic.twitter.com/rDSaJdAAYw
— CMA Country Music (@CountryMusic) November 14, 2023
The news comes as Wilson especially is having an unforgettable year. The Louisiana native just won five CMA Awards, including for Female Vocalist and the night’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year. She also just received two Grammy Awards nominations, both for Best Country Album, for her 2022 Bell Bottom Country, and Best Country Duo/Group Performance, for her “Save Me” collaboration with Jelly Roll.
Wilson spent years living in a camper trailer, believing in herself, even when she was told no, time and time again.
“The truth is, I knew that this would happen,” Wilson said backstage at the CMA Awards. “I knew that I would be here. I feel like sometimes you gotta pretend, you gotta put yourself into the shoes of things that you’re not, so one day you can become what you want to be, and what you knew that you could be. And that’s what I do.”
McBryde is also having a year to remember. The singer-songwriter is enjoying a Top 20 hit with “Light On In The Kitchen,” from her recent The Devil I Know album. And like Wilson, McBryde’s start in country music was anything but easy.
“I’ve just been thinking about it, and talking about it with my band recently, that there was a time when we were touring in my Toyota, and then we moved to a van,” McBryde recently recalled, ahead of her performance at the CMA Awards, where she was also nominated. “And then we moved to a van and a U-Haul trailer. And then it was a van and a trailer that somebody else owned … So we’ve been looking at our journey up to now.
“And to think that, right now,” she continued, “what I get to do, is dress fantastically and celebrate country music, with other people that are here to do it, that have been doing it, some not as long as I have, some longer than I have, it blows my mind. If I could go back and write this in one of my yearbooks from middle school, I totally would.”
CMA Country Christmas, an annual tradition since 2010 will air on Thursday, December 14, on ABC. It will stream the next day on both Hulu and Disney+.