Dolly Parton has three Christmas albums, and right around this time each year, I bring them out and give them another listen. Her first Christmas album is a duet project that she and Kenny Rogers released in 1984 called Once Upon A Christmas. By 1988, the album sold over five million copies worldwide.
I recall as a young country music-loving and, to be honest, Dolly-obsessed teenager, buying the album on vinyl in 1984. I repurchased it a few years later on cassette and again on CD. I even purchased the project digitally a few years ago.
Before Kenny passed away in 2020, I interviewed him many times over the years, and one thing he always told me was that he wanted to do a Christmas tour with Dolly, but it “never happened.” Now, sadly, it never can.
In one of those interviews with Rogers, he told me of the Christmas album with his friend Dolly; “I never realized the depth of her writing until she wrote seven songs and those songs were the best on that album.” He added, “She’s an amazing talent and an amazing writer, and every song she takes on, she comes from a different place.”
Picking just five of the best Dolly Christmas songs was hard, but I managed to narrow it down to the ones I play repeatedly. The songs that I have known every word to since the 1980s and one that she did in 2020 makes me emotional each time I hear it.
In my many interviews with Dolly over the years, she shared with me what she hopes for each year when the holidays roll around. She said, “More than anything, I just want people to feel the joy of Christmas and what Christmas is really about, which is Jesus. And the love of family and feeling happy.”
Here are our five absolute best Dolly Christmas songs:
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