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Carrie Underwood: How She Spends Her Las Vegas Days Off

Carrie Underwood is in the middle of her December run at Resorts World in Las Vegas, with shows tonight (12/6), this weekend, and next week. However, her work schedule and…

Carrie Underwood posing in a green dress
Jason Davis/Getty Images

Carrie Underwood is in the middle of her December run at Resorts World in Las Vegas, with shows tonight (12/6), this weekend, and next week. However, her work schedule and being away from her Nashville home is not stopping the mother of two from finding the time to do some serious baking.

As she often does, Carrie is sharing her baking and holiday creations on her Insta Stories. She posted a photo of a sourdough bread in the first of a series of slides and wrote, "Here's hoping I can fit in my @Reflection wardrobe tomorrow! #Sourdoygh #IBakeOnDaysOff."

The second slide shows a sheet of unbaked cookies in various shapes for the holidays. She wrote, "Why are there cat cookies? Because there was a cat cookie cutter. That's why. Christmas cat."

In the third slide, she shows the unbaked cookies before they went into the oven. She wrote, "Christmas music, wine icing, and me!" The final slide on her Insta Stories shows the cookies baked and decorated. She wrote, "I'm not good at cookie decoration, but they are made with love."

In other Carrie news, she will have a new collaboration coming soon. Not long ago, Cody Johnson explained explained where his Carrie Underwood duet is after his new Leather album tracklist was announced, and a duet with Underwood was not in the twelve songs on the project. Cody teased the new collaboration in June before his performance at CMA Fest.

Johnson told us, "I guess I can just go ahead and tell you, it's on the deluxe edition. The issue is when you're dealing with an artist of that caliber, you have to be very respectful of their time. You have to be respectful of their tour when they're releasing an album, when they're releasing a single."

Cody continued, "Carrie was so gracious to work with. I respect her so much as a vocalist and an artist. I think a lot of newer artists would have got that (duet) and said, 'Look, I have a duet with Carrie Underwood! Look, look, look!' I'm very thankful she did it, so I don't care when it comes out. I know that it's done. I know that when the timing is right, it will be beautiful." He added, "I think it's something that's gonna be trajectory-altering as a single if it gets to be a single."

There are so many country music Christmas songs, both original and classic, that have been done throughout the years. It seems impossible to pick five of the best country Christmas songs ever. Still, we did just that in our list of Top Five Country Christmas songs over the last several decades.

There are too many honorable mentions to mention, but we just loved Taylor Swift's 2007 "Last Christmas." Also, there are several Christmas albums Martina McBride has released over the years. Reba also has four Christmas albums already under her belt. Johnny Cash had some fantastic Christmas songs in his career. George Strait, Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks  also brought the Christmas cheer. Additionally, there's the amazing Christmas work from Brett Eldredge, who has made a career out of his annual Christmas "Glow" tour. Other artists include Luke Bryan, Darius Rucker, Kenny Rogers, Lady A, Kacey Musgraves, and even Miranda Lambert's Pistol Annies.

In 2023, Jon Pardi released a new Christmas album not long after he was made a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He told us, "I’ve always wanted to make a Christmas record. It just sounded fun! It’s been many years of hearing Christmas music, and being like, ‘I still haven’t made a [Christmas] record!’ Eventually, I was just like, ‘Alright, we’re doing a Christmas record!'"

Kane Brown also released a new Christmas song this year. He released a cover of Elvis Presley’s classic “Blue Christmas.” Elvis’ voice starts off the familiar song, and Kane’s voice comes in on the second verse. Kane told us, “I chose to cover ‘Blue Christmas’ because it was probably one of my favorite Christmas songs. I don’t have a lot. I used to sing it all the time whenever I was first coming up in the music scene, just while I was warming up and just playing around on stage, so when I got asked to do a Christmas song, of course, I’d have picked that one. And to reimagine it with Elvis is amazing.”

While we know everyone will have their own list of country Christmas favorites, we give you our list of the Top Five Country Christmas Songs to date:

5. Carrie Underwood - "Little Drummer Boy"

With a cameo by her young son Isaiah singing adorably on this classic remake, it is no wonder this has quickly become a holiday favorite and makes his famous mom proud.

Underwood is playing shows and has added Christmas song to her Las Vegas residency which she wraps up next week (12/16).

Carrie told us recently about decorating early for Christmas this year (2023), "There’s nothing sadder than a Christmas tree up with no presents underneath it, so I don’t really think that you want to get your Christmas tree up too early, but this year, I was a little earlier than normal because we had Thanksgiving and then head out to Vegas for my Reflection shows, and I had to get everything up before I left.”

4. Gwen Stefani (Featuring Blake Shelton) - "You Make It Feel Like Christmas"

A wonderful song that puts you right into the holiday spirit. Gwen and Blake do this song beautifully together and seem to have fun with every word they sing.

On the footnote version of the title song’s music video, Stefani said, “The idea of getting to be a part of people’s holidays through music is one of the greatest gifts. Christmas music lives forever.”

She also noted in the video footnotes that the video idea was inspired by the 1960s TV show Bewitched, a show both of them loved as kids. Gwen and Blake co-wrote the song “You Make It Feel Like Christmas.”

3. Brad Paisley - "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy"

This is an excellent take on the 1960s original Christmas song by country music icon Buck Owens. Brad does this to perfection honoring his late friend. Garth Brooks also covered this song on his first Christmas album, Beyond The Season.

2. Dolly Parton - "Hard Candy Christmas"

Not initially known as or written as a Christmas song, this song comes from the soundtrack of Dolly Parton's 1982 movie Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. The song has become a classic and has been covered by many after Dolly, including her friend Reba.

1. Brenda Lee - "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Possibly one of the best holiday songs in any genre; not a year goes by that we don't spin this record on repeat. In 2023, sixty-five years after its first release to radio, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time ever.

By hitting the No.1 spot, Brenda Lee breaks several records. Many of those records were held by Mariah Carey and “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which Lee beat out for the top spot.

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.