Carrie Underwood Recalls Heated Family Christmas

Carrie Underwood loves the holiday season, especially because she gets the time off to spend with her family. "Everything shuts down," says the singer. "It's the great thing about country music and all the major holidays, [including] Jesus' birthday, we've got to shut down."

The Oklahoma native has a lot of great Christmas memories, mainly about being with her family. One such memory was of her late grandmother, her father's mother, coming over to their house for Christmas, and since she was a slightly older woman (mid-80s to 90s), she was usually cold. One such year, it was a very mild winter in Checotah, but Carrie's grandmother was still chilly.

"She was freezing, so we had blankets on her, we had robes on her, we were trying to cover grandma up," recalls Carrie. "Dad, being the good son he is, built a fire when it's not cold outside anyway ... and the temperature gauge in the room was over 80 degrees. My sisters and I all went to my room and raided my closet, and we were putting shorts and tank tops on because it was so hot in the house, just because we were trying to make grandma comfortable."

Carrie, who used to go caroling at the local nursing home on Christmas Eve, also has a favorite Christmas song, 'O Holy Night,' which she performed on her FOX holiday special Monday night. "It just talks about the grandness of that night, and it's very powerful," Carrie explains. "It's powerful singing it, and to me, it's always been very powerful listening to it."

Carrie is currently heading up the country charts with her single, 'Temporary Home,' the follow-up to her chart-topping hit 'Cowboy Casanova.'