Parker McCollum grew up in Conroe, Texas and he and all of his family and extended family would go to his grandmother’s house on Christmas. One of his favorite childhood memories on Christmas Day was playing football in the front yard. “Every year, we would all play football in my Grandma’s front yard probably until the time I was 15 or 16 years old, every Christmas morning,” he says.

Some of his favorite Christmas movies growing up would have to include Christmas Vacation and surprisingly, Annabelle’s Wish. “This is gonna sound kind of goofy, but one of them is definitely Annabelle’s Wish, because Randy Travis narrates it. I used to watch that when I was really little with my mom, but I mean, Christmas Vacation is a phenomenal movie,” Parker says. “And I always really liked the Santa Clause series with Tim Allen. I always thought those were really good, even the newer ones.”

One of his favorite Christmas gifts as a kid would have to be a deer rifle he received when he was around 11 or 12 years old.“It would be a Browning 270 Deer rifle I got when I was 13? So, I wanted it so bad, and I’d always had to use my older brothers’ or my Dad’s gun, you know? They wouldn’t even let me shoot anything then. So, I was probably 11 or 12 years old and a Browning 270 Deer rifle…bad son of a gun.”

Parker is closing in on the top of the country charts with his single, “Pretty Heart.”