Dolly Parton’s 1982 Classic “Hard Candy Christmas” IS NOT Actually A Christmas Song

Setting the record straight.

This time of year, if I listen to Christmas music, I’m going back to the classics, and of course, Dolly Parton’s beautiful “Hard Candy Christmas” will forever be at the top of my list. It’s a holiday classic for me… or at least, I always though it was.

Apparently, Dolly never considered it to be about Christmas at all:

“It’s kind of funny that people think it’s a Christmas song, and it’s really not. It’s really just about people having hard times and saying, ‘It’s like a hard candy Christmas,’ like when you’re so poor that all you get for Christmas is a piece of hard candy.”

Of course, “Hard Candy Christmas” was originally recorded by Dolly in 1982 for her role in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and it peaked at #8 on the Billboard U.S. Hot Country Songs chart in 1983. Although it was written by Carol Hall, Dolly related deeply to the sentiment that while her family didn’t have a lot of money to buy presents and exchange gifts, they always got a box of hard candy every year.

When she was young growing up in the mountains of East Tennessee, they didn’t even have electricity, so she would go walking with her dad to find the perfect tree and they’d decorate it with whatever they had laying around the house instead of lights and ornaments:

“In the early days we didn’t have electricity so we used to go out I the woods with my Dad in the afternoon, find the best tree that we could and we’d take it back in the house and decorate it with whatever Mamma could (find).

Buttons and popcorn, anything that we could have which was great, those days were great.”

The simplicity of those times stuck with her for all these years, even though her family would be considered dirt poor by today’s standards… but they were rich where it really matters, and I think that’s something Dolly has always carried with her.

Some of the Parton Christmas traditions were simple because they couldn’t afford to do much, but now Dolly looks back on them as some of the most special memories in her life regardless of the lack of gifts:

“Momma would always tell Christmas stories, read the bible, then we’d go out to the barn and they would tell us that at midnight the cattle would kneel, like in honor. But we never could stay awake long enough to see it.

We could never see that happen. But we always had a little something…. It didn’t matter what we got… it was great for us.”

A simple reminder from the great Dolly Parton about what’s really important this holiday season. She once recalled a sad, yet heartwarming story about her a year her mom didn’t get any presents, which goes to show the bond of the Parton family and how generous Dolly has always been.

A couple years ago, during an appearance on the Kelly Clarkson Show, Dolly explained that many people think she wrote it, and it’s one of those that she always wished she did:

“Well actually, I did not write ‘Hard Candy Christmas.’ Everybody thinks I did, the girl that wrote all of the music from the best wrote that. But I love that song, and people always tag it to me, but I get a lot of credit for a lot of stuff people do, just because I’m singing it. I do write, and that’s one of the ones I did not write that everybody thinks I did, and I wish I had.”

Even though Dolly doesn’t think of it as a Christmas song, it’s a sad country tune nonetheless that, luckily, you can listen to all year long… it’s a timeless classic, and one of Dolly’s most beloved songs for a reason.

Turn it up:

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