Alan Jackson (Christmas traditions) OC: …everything. :30
“Christmas is pretty traditional. We don’t let anybody open any presents until Christmas morning, after Santa Claus comes. We don’t let them get up on their own and take off, you know, everybody has to wait and kind of get situated, and maybe have a cup of coffee, and then we start all of the regular Christmas morning activities, opening presents, taking pictures and video. We have music going, you know, I try to keep Christmas music going in the background. I like to turn that on before I let them come down to the tree and everything.”

Alan Jackson (meaning of Christmas) OC: …lovely Christmas. :20
“Always try to remember Jesus’ birthday, and just the whole thing, and have a wonderful, big meal, almost like Thanksgiving four weeks later. We have the same, pretty much – turkey, dressing, all the same kind of things. Sometimes we have family members in Tennessee, and sometimes just us or friends, and we always go home to Georgia prior to that, you know…pretty standard, lovely Christmas.”

AJ (Christmas music) OC: …at Christmas. :15
“I love the, you know, when we listen to Christmas songs, we put on the old ones that you grew up with, and the classic recordin’s and…from Gene Autry to Nat King [Cole], and you know, all the guys and Bing Crosby and everybody. But songs that we like to listen to at Christmas.”

“Hi! This is Alan Jackson, and I’m wishing y’all a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hi! Billy Currington here, wishing you and your family a safe and Happy Holiday Season.”

“Hey! This is T.J., and I’m John, and we are Brothers Osborne, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! What’s up guys? I’m Canaan Smith, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! What’s up? This is Clare Dunn, hoping you have a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey y’all! What’s up? This is Darius Rucker, wishing you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! This is David Nail, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! This is Dierks Bentley, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey everybody! It’s Dierks Bentley, wishing you a very Happy Holiday season.”

“Hey everybody! This is Easton Corbin, wishing you and your family a Happy Holidays.”

“Hey everybody! This is Easton Corbin, wishing you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey everybody! It’s Eric Church, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hi! I’m Eric Paslay. Hope you have a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! This is Gary Allan. Merry Christmas.”

“Hey everybody! This is George Strait, wishing you and your family a Happy Holiday season.”

“Hey! This is Jon Pardi, wishing you a Merry Christmas!”

“Hey! I’m Josh Turner, wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season.”

“Hey! This is Kacey Musgraves, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hi folks, this is Keith Urban, wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hi everyone, this is Keith Urban, wishing you and all your family the very best this holiday season.”

“Hey y’all, it’s Kip Moore. Happy Holidays!”

“Hey everybody! We’re Lady Antebellum, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey everybody! We are Lady Antebellum. Happy Holidays.”

“Hey! This is Lauren Alaina, wishing you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! We’re Little Big Town, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! We’re Little Big Town. Happy Holidays!”

“Hey! It’s Luke Bryan, wishing you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! It’s Luke Bryan. Happy Holidays!”

“Hey! It’s Mickey Guyton, wishing you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hey everybody! I’m Sam Hunt. Happy Holidays!”

“Hi, this is Shania Twain, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Hey! It’s Toby Keith with the gift of politically correctness. Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah, or Bah Humbug. Whatever way you celebrate, I hope it’s a good one.”

AJ (Thanksgiving) OC: …enjoy it. :19
“My favorite Thanksgiving dish would be the homemade dressin’ that we, cornbread-based kind of dressin’ that we always have with turkey. That recipe is a kind of a combination of my mama, and Denise has taken it and perfected it over the years, so that me and my children really enjoy it.”

Brothers Osborne (misfits Thanksgiving) OC: …going home. :45
“What we’ve done the past several years is because it’s so hard to go home, we would have what we call the Misfit Thanksgiving dinner, and all the people in Nashville who aren’t able to go home to their families, we would just invite them over to our house and have a big potluck style Thanksgiving dinner. We’ll take like a couple of tables and throw them together and throw some sheets on it just to make it look nice. It’s a very redneck display of like tableware, because all the plates don’t match and the forks and knives don’t match, but we don’t care. People will bring wine, and at the end of the day, we’ll probably have 12-15 people all sitting at dinner together that weren’t able to go home with their families, and just enjoy it with friends. It’s been really fun. Definitely a lot less stress than going home.”

Canaan Smith (pumpkin pie) OC: …Thanksgiving. :14
“Pumpkin pie is where it’s at. My mom makes the best. She got it from her mom, my Nanny. It’s so good. It’s made from scratch. Everything about it, it’s just mouthwatering. I love it. I can’t get enough. If I could get fat, it’d be from pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.”

Clare Dunn (Thanksgiving dish) OC: …like hers. :21
“I think my favorite Thanksgiving dish [is] my mom makes the best mashed potatoes in the world. I mean, they’re crazy. They’re like garlic and butter and all the good stuff, so that’s probably my favorite Thanksgiving dish. Oh, and she makes great stuffing too, and I’m not a stuffing person, but I like hers.”

Darius Rucker (favorite part of Thanksgiving) OC: …my family. :17
“My favorite part of Thanksgiving is easy – it’s food. It’s eating. It’s hanging out with family and getting some great food, ‘cause that’s really what Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for all of the great things you’ve got, and I always give thanks for the greatest thing I’ve got and that’s my family.”

Darius Rucker (Thanksgiving) OC: …alive. :17
“The main thing I’m thankful for is my family, no doubt about that. Thanksgiving is about family first, you know either getting together going to New Jersey and getting together with family or in Charleston and getting together with my family and just cooking and eating and sitting around talking and remembering and being thankful for where we are and that we’re all still alive.”

David Nail (Thanksgiving dish) OC: …spoonful. :33
“My favorite Thanksgiving dish was my grandmother’s macaroni and cheese. There probably wasn’t anything elaborate about it. It was probably the cheapest macaroni and cheese that money can buy, but for some reason it was always extra special, and she would also add extra cheese to it for me. My cousin Matt and I would have many, many fights about who would get the last spoonful.”

Dierks Bentley (Thanksgiving must-have) OC: …for Thanksgiving. :34
“You gotta have a big turkey. Thanksgiving is not possible without a turkey. We cook it traditionally, but when we’re in, a couple of Thanksgivings ago, we were here in Nashville, we did the whole fry the turkey up, and it was great. It just tasted so good; all those juices get locked in there, and I love that too. You really can’t, to me, cook a turkey wrong. I’m gonna eat it any way, and I have over the years. Trust me, I’ve played a lot of county and state fairs, where I’ve seen gigantic turkey legs, you know, I’ve had the flat meat. I’ve done turkey every way you could do it. I’m pretty good any way you want to cook it up, but you’ve got to have a turkey for Thanksgiving.”

Easton (Thanksgiving) OC: …my grandma’s. :33
“Having family and being able to spend that quality time with them and obviously, the opportunity to do what I do. But absolutely during that time, being able to spend that time with family and your loved ones. We used to always go to my grandma’s, that’s Christmas and Thanksgiving. We’d go there for the big meal. I don’t get to go back much. A lot of times I’ll stay up [in Nashville] for Thanksgiving, and then go down during Christmas, but we’d always go to my grandma’s.”

Eric Church (Thanksgiving) OC: …want to do it. :23
“A couple of things. I’m thankful for my family and great health. And I’m thankful for from a career standpoint, I’m very thankful for the success we’ve had lately. I’m thankful for what the fans have done. I mean there’s a lot of stuff to be thankful for in that regard. And I’m thankful that I was given the opportunity to do it my own way. I’m thankful that I’m going to get to keep doing this and do it the way that I want to do it.”

Eric Paslay (Thanksgiving) OC: …too much. :05
“My best Thanksgiving memory, I think, is just hanging out with family, watching football and eating too much!”

Josh Turner (fave side dish) OC: …’em myself. [laughs] :24
“Uh, deviled eggs! [laughs] Where I’m from in South Carolina, I don’t think I’ve tasted a bad deviled egg. It’s like everybody has their own twist on it, but they’re all good, but I always loved it when my mama made ‘em. I’m learning as I get older, making deviled eggs is no easy task. It’s more complicated than it looks, and so that’s probably why I never made ‘em myself.” [laughs]

Keith (Thanksgiving) OC: …for me. :21
“Thankful that, well, my marriage is just, it’s life-giving, not just life-changing, it’s been life-giving for me. And from there, we created life, and that’s just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And the effect that all of that has had in my work, has given life to it too, given it a sense of purpose and really deepened the experience for me.”

Lady A (Charles-Thanksgiving eating contest) OC: …five pounds! :25
“One of my most memorable Thanksgiving memories was probably the first year that me and my two brothers decided to start our annual eating contest where we ate throughout the whole day. We started that morning and weighed ourselves and at the very end of the night, we weighed ourselves out and all three of us equally gained five pounds. I wish we had a more accurate scale to decide the winner, but we all tied. Five pounds!”

Lady A (Hillary-Thanksgiving food) OC: …ever tasted. :12
“So, my favorite Thanksgiving food would have to be my grandmother’s sweet potato casserole. There’s just something she puts in it — probably all the love – that makes it better than anything I’ve ever tasted.”

LBT (Thanksgiving) 2 OC: (Kimberly) …and eat. :31
KIMBERLY: “Thanksgiving—we love Thanksgiving, ‘cause we get to be with our families and we don’t often get to spend time with our families, our extended families, until the holidays. I love being around the table with my family and talking and laughing and cooking and eating…” JIMI: “And eating and eating and eating and eating…” PHILLIP: “The laughter around the eating, the good cheer, the celebration, the music…” JIMI: “The eating, going taking a nap, then coming back and eating.” KIMBERLY: “Go to bed with a full belly, take a nap, and then get up and eat.”

Mickey Guyton (Thanksgiving traditions) OC: …Thanksgiving traditions. :17
“One of my Thanksgiving traditions is playing charades after Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not the most competitive person in the world, but as soon as you put some Charades in the picture, I am crazy, and you will definitely want to be on my team if we’re playing Charades. I’m just saying. So, that’s one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions.”

Mickey Guyton (favorite Thanksgiving dish) OC: …both so much! :39
“My favorite Thanksgiving dish that has to, has to, has to be at Thanksgiving dinner is dessert. Dessert is my favorite Thanksgiving dish. I mean, it doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s sweet. My mom actually makes an Italian cream cake that’s absolutely awesome. It’s homemade, and the entire family, that’s the first thing to go at Thanksgiving dinner. And my Grandma D, she makes a pecan pie that is awesome. She taught me how to make them when I was little, and I just love them, and that’s the other thing that I look forward to at Thanksgiving dinner, and I love them both so much!”

Sam Hunt (Thanksgiving eats) OC: …glass of milk. :34
“When I pile my plate up, it’s mostly turkey and then I’ll put a little dressing on the side, and I’ll usually go ahead and grab my dessert on the first run [laughs] and have it ready before it all disappears. Those are the really the three things. It’s strange, but since I was very young, I’ve always loved drinking milk, my brothers too, we drank lots of milk. My cousins, who grew up down the road, they always looked at us funny when we wanted to drink milk with our Thanksgiving meal. They would have coke or whatever else. So, I still get turkey, dressing, a piece of pecan pie and a big ole glass of milk.”

George Strait (CMA AJ performance) OC: …came out of it. :32
“Well Alan has been one of my favorite people that I’ve met in the business since I’ve been in it.  I’ve met a lot of great people and Alan and I have become friends.  We just have.  I love his writing, his singing and we cut some things together before.  And so when all of this came about I called him and we talked about it and had our little heart to heart about everything.  And so this is kind of what came out of it.”

AJ CMA-50 01 OC: …for me. :32
“Obviously, I was very proud and excited about it. But, at the same time, I almost felt like I wasn’t hardly qualified yet or something. I remember watching that show when I was still in Georgia, before I even hardly thought about being a singer, I guess. But, I don’t know – I just never thought about the Entertainer award up to that point that much. But I was in some good company and…I guess the first time was kind of a surprise for me.”

AJ CMMA-50 02 OC: …to wear.  :28
“Within the industry and people that book concerts and, you know, the TV shows and all the thigs that go with the rest of your career, I think it does make a difference to have that title for a while. And it really – that’s…that’s pretty good to be in that small of company, and I definitely feel like it’s a…you know, it’s a badge that not a lot of people have had the opportunity to wear.”

AJ CMA-50  03 OC: …out there. :26
“I hadn’t told anybody. Not even my manager…the band…anybody. When we walked out there, before we walked out to do – I was doing an old song ‘Pop-a-Top’ I had out – I told the band, ‘If I stop the song – if I raise my hand and stop the song in the middle of that song, y’all stop.’ I said, ‘I may do something different.’ That’s all I told ‘em. ‘Cause I didn’t want them to know. What I was worried about was if word got out, the CMA’d probably shut me down [and] wouldn’t let me go out there. And so, I had to sneak out there.”

AJ CMA-50 04 OC: …like they did. :24
“Even after it was a big hit and everybody was talking about it, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll perform this onstage for a few years in my show, and it’ll probably just go away after, you know, the memory of 9-11 gets less and less [fresh], and I think people won’t want to hear that.’ And I was completely wrong. ‘Cause it just seems like now I couldn’t do a show without  putting it in there. And people, they respond just like they did.”

AJ CMA-50 05 OC: …in the world. :26
“The interesting thing about country music to me is – just like this 50 year span we’re talking about – you’ve got artists that have been around forever and new artists. And even though the music’s changed…and gone back and forth and up and down over the years, there’s still a similar thread that runs through all of it about what they’re trying to write about and sing about. And the sounds have changed, but, you know, we’ve always had a devotion to our fans just the same as they have to us, you know. The best fans in the world.”

AJ (Precious Memories II) OC: …and simple. :34
“It’s just really overwhelming how many people have enjoyed this album. So, of course, ever since I made the first one, they’re like, ‘When [are] you going to make another one?’ (laughs) That’s all I’ve heard now for…(laughs) ‘When [are] you going to make another one?’ We had so many songs, of course, that we didn’t get to do on the first one , but…and Denise sat down and helped me pick out some more this time, and…that’s where we’re at. I just…we tried to just go in and do it just like the first one – just heartfelt and simple.”

AJ (Precious Memories songs resonate) OC: …that sound. 1:03
“They’re a lot like country songs. They’re memorable melodies, and they’re well-written subjects that appeal to common people. And I think just…when you really start listening to those songs, as a songwriter now I’m especially amazed at how good they are, you know, in the melodies. And even some of the melodies are similar, almost, to a country song. And I think that’s why I – one reason I love ‘em. And I think people that grew up in church, it’s…you know, it’s not unlike your young days in high school and whatever you listened to on the radio, you know? Those are songs that [when] you hear them now, they really take you back to that feeling of that moment. And I think that’s what these songs do for people that heard ‘em every Sunday and especially like the church I went to had a big ol’ pipe organ and a piano and that was just a monstrous sound. It was very – even though I wasn’t that crazy about being at church when I was a young man, that music – I loved that sound.”