Carrie Underwood Ready to Shine on Holiday Special

Carrie Underwood says she's in a 'Christmas frame of mind' these days, spinning holiday tunes like 'Little Drummer Boy' and 'O Holy Night' to help her get in a festive mood. And tonight, the singer will help everyone get into the Christmas spirit with her two-hour variety special, 'Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special,' airing at 9:00 PM ET on FOX.

The show features musical performances as well as skits, along with guest stars Dolly Parton, Kristin Chenoweth and Christina Applegate. There's also non-blondes David Cook and Brad Paisley.

The special afforded Carrie her first opportunity to meet Dolly Parton, who performs solo and with Carrie as well. "I was so excited to be able to get to talk to her and obviously get to sing with her," Carrie tells AOL Television. "It felt like such a special moment for me in the show to be able to perform with her. It was a dream come true. When Dolly's there, you just step out of the spotlight; let her do her thing because no matter how hard you try, she's going to steal the spotlight. It's great. It's the way it should be."

While Carrie has recorded a few Christmas songs, she says she was so busy last year she didn't actually have time to do a full album. "But I would love to. I love classic Christmas songs. They have been around forever, and everybody knows them and I like doing things very traditional as far as Christmas songs go, so I would love to do that some point. I'm going to finish the album, I guess."

Carrie says when she does finish the album, she isn't likely to stray too far into unfamiliar territory. "I just think there's so many things that are just perfect the way they are. When you get some good classics, of course, you can put a little bit of yourself in there. If we all sang the same song the exact same way, that would be really boring and nobody would want to hear anybody else sing it. But I love to keep things as traditional as possible, and I love strings and I love to just keeping them traditional and very classy."

While many of her dreams have come true, it seems the wish for her own holiday special (not to mention her start on 'American Idol') can be traced back to the gift Carrie recalls wanting most as a child growing up in Oklahoma.

"I remember when I was little, I wanted a TV so bad," says the superstar. "There's wasn't a box underneath the tree big enough to have a TV in it. So I was kind of getting disappointed the closer it got to Christmas, because there was never another box that was under there that was big enough. And my mom had wrapped up the remote and it was the smallest TV you could possibly get; it was my TV. I think I had that sucker until I was like -- they might even still have it at the house to be honest, it was probably like 15, 20 years old. But that was really awesome to a 7-year-old girl."

In addition to holiday tunes, expect Carrie to perform songs from her current album, the chart-topping 'Play On.'