Blake Shelton brings family and friends, along with bawdy fun, to “Not-So-Family Christmas” TV special, airing Monday
Oklahoma country music superstar Blake Shelton dons tights and frolics with elves on his first holiday TV special, “Blake Shelton’s Not-So-Family Christmas,” airing Monday night on NBC. Photo by Lewis Jacobs/NBC
From Fridays Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Oklahoman Blake Shelton brings family, friends — and a bit of off-color fun — to first holiday special
Column: The country music superstar’s “Not-So-Family Christmas” airs Monday night on NBC.
Don’t let the title fool you: Blake Shelton is inviting his famous wife and his mama, as well as some of his closest celebrity pals, to partake in his first holiday TV special, “Blake Shelton’s Not-So-Family Christmas.”
The star-studded hourlong special will air at 9 p.m. Monday on NBC after “The Voice,” the reality TV show that established the Oklahoma country singer as a popular television personality. The seasonal celebration also will air at 7 p.m. Dec. 7.
“Some of my earliest memories are memories of Christmases ‘cause it’s such a big deal to me, everything from just the event to the music to the Christmas specials that used to come on TV when I was kid,” Shelton says in a behind-the-scenes clip provided by NBC.
“I always knew that I wanted to make a Christmas album if I ever could. Now, the Christmas special is the icing on the cake. And to be able to do it the way that we wanted to do it, which is have fun with it and goof around and try to make people laugh but still do the best we can as far as making some great music along the way … this has been a blast.”
The TV special will include many of the family and friends featured on the Ada native’s first yuletide album, “Cheers, it’s Christmas,” released earlier this fall. Fellow Oklahoman Reba McEntire and “American Idol” Kelly Clarkson will join Shelton for duets on the show.
Shelton’s wife and fellow Tishomingo resident Miranda Lambert also will sing with him on a special seasonal version of his hit ballad “Home.” (Michael Buble, the Canadian crooner who co-wrote and initially topped the charts with “Home,” is hosting his own “Home for the Holidays” special Dec. 10 on NBC, and Shelton will be a guest on the program.)
But the newly crowned Country Music Association Entertainer and Male Vocalist of the Year considers the highlight of the special his duet with his mother, Dorothy Shackleford, on the Christmas song they co-wrote, “Time for Me to Come Home.”
“A lot of dreams came true on this thing,” Shelton says.
While the show will feature Shelton and his guests crooning new and classic Christmas tunes, the humor apparently will come closer to Shelton’s notoriously bawdy Twitter posts than the family-friendly gags of “Rudolph Red-Nosed Reindeer.” From the looks of the previews, though, he will have a clay-animated moment in the special — when he isn’t donning tights, frolicking with elves and getting beaten up by a giant cooked turkey.
Shelton’s “The Voice” co-star Christina Aguilera, Larry the Cable Guy and Jay Leno will join the country music superstar in some of the comedy bits.
“It says it all in the title of this show, you know, ‘Not-So-Family Christmas.’ You know, me as an artist isn’t exactly me as a television personality, and I like to kick and push the limits as much as I can. I’m not an actor or a comedian, but I’m also not somebody that’s ever serious,” Shelton says.
“I wanted that to be a part of these skits and I wanted to be edgy with ‘em. And I think that’s important for me, and I think it’s important for people to see country music in that light, too. We can be edgy also.”
-BAM
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Comments
Looking forward to Blake’s Xmas special. I am so excited! I hope other artists will also jump on board to do Holiday specials. It brings me closer and gives me wonderful memories of my childhood…growing up with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, etc. There Holiday specials were amazing and I always looked forward to the following year. Blake is starting a new tradition. I hope he continues for many years to come.!!! Thank you Blake. Happy Holidays!
This was the worst Christmas so called special I had ever seen.I am so glad my grandchildren were not here to watch such anti-christmas trash..He should be ashamed of himself along with each of the other artist…Awful show…Will look at Blake a whole different way in the future now.
I’m so happy to find out that Michael Buble is going to have his own holiday special! I was thrilled when one of my coworkers at DISH told me about Blake Shelton’s Christmas special, and I’m so excited since I’ll be able to record it. I just got my DISH Hopper installed and I’m looking forward to putting the 2TB hard drive to use. I have more than enough space to record all the holiday specials this year, and plenty of memory left over to last me past next Christmas!