When it comes to country music, Dolly Parton is the Queen of Christmas. Every year, she goes all out with holiday fashion and has multiple Yuletide albums to choose from. Additionally, Parton has starred in a stack of Christmas specials. In short, she loves the holiday season and does what she can to spread joy this time of year.
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Bringing Christmas cheer to the masses is not a new thing for Parton. In 1990, she appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to promote a holiday special. While she was there, she shared one of her favorite Christmas memories.
[RELATED: 10 (Yes, 10) Dolly Parton Christmas Classics to Cozy Up to and Enjoy This Season]
Dolly Parton Shares an Early Christmas Memory
Most kids wait for Christmas every year hoping to find gifts under the tree. However, Dolly Parton and her siblings showed they understood the reason for the season one year when they were happy to not receive gifts.
Carson asked Parton to talk about her earliest Christmas memory. “I remember a very special Christmas that was very special to all of us,” she began. “I must have been eight or ten years old and my mother had never had a wedding ring. My mom was 15, dad was 17 when they got married and they were poor,” she explained.
That Christmas, her dad decided he was going to buy his wife a wedding ring. However, that meant that the six or seven—she wasn’t sure—Parton children would have to go without gifts. “He talked to us about it. It was a surprise for Momma and we were all excited,” Parton recalled. “That also was the first year that we had a Christmas tree with electricity and electric lights.”
Her father made a game out of gift-giving that year. He hid the ring behind one of the bulbs on the string of lights. The Parton children spent all day searching for it. “Whoever found the ring got the only other Christmas present as kind of a prize,” Parton explained. “When we found it, we were so excited. Mamma cried and we cried and we were all so happy,” she added.
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