As the Christmas season begins, many people feel ambivalent toward this time of the year. While many of us look forward to the festivities, others find the season difficult and time with their family stressful. Not Dolly Parton, who recently admitted she loves “everything” to do with Christmas and has always spent the holidays with her husband
What’s more, the 78-year-old country music legend who has been married to Carl Thomas Dean since 1966, has never been away from home during the holidays and relishes the chance to get involved with all the traditions.
“I love being home for Christmas, and so far I’ve missed all kinds of holidays, but to my knowledge I have never not been home for Christmas,” she told People magazine.
Parton added that she loved “the tradition of being home for Christmas, and being with family, and having all the good food and all the different dishes that different family members make, and just the music, and just all the festivities of the lights and the sounds, and everything to do with Christmas.”
However, it is not just sights and sounds that touch the country star. She also looked forward to the upcoming feast and explained that her family kept some leftovers from their Thanksgiving celebrations at the end of November.
“I always love everything we have to do at Christmas. So many of the things we have at Thanksgiving, you know, like the sage dressing and the giblet gravy and the mashed potatoes and the sweet potato bars,” she said.
“I’m big on making a big ol’ pot of chicken and dumplings, and everybody looks forward to that as well.”
While Parton may always spend Christmas at home, she recently admitted that time away kept her marriage together.
Reflecting on her 50-year relationship with her husband, Parton listed the things that kept the couple together. And surprisingly one of the things that kept them together was time apart.
“Yeah, stay gone as much as you can,” she explained to Whiskey Riff.
“I’ve been married 50 years, I’ve been home about 45 [days] of those, so it works perfect.”
But she also clarified that you both need to treat each other well for any relationship to last.
“No, actually, you need to have respect and love for each other, and you need to be good friends too,” she added.
– with BANG.