Carrie Underwood’s Early Christmas Decorating

Carrie Underwood loves Christmastime, and with two young sons at home, the holidays can be very exciting and fun. Carrie had her Christmas decorations up this year before the country sat down for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Underwood told us, "My Christmas decorating schedule honestly depends on my schedule, so this year, I decorated before Thanksgiving, which is not really something that I would like to do. I think the ideal time to decorate for Christmas is the weekend right after Thanksgiving."

She continued, "It's like Thanksgiving's over, you just bust out all of the Christmas stuff. That's when it really kinda starts getting chilly outside, and you get to start making fires in the fireplace and really start putting the Christmas presents under the tree."

Carrie says, "There's nothing sadder than a Christmas tree up with no presents underneath it, so I don't really think that you want to get your Christmas tree up too early, but this year, I was a little earlier than normal because we had Thanksgiving and then head out to Vegas for my Reflection shows, and I had to get everything up before I left."

RELATED: Carrie Underwood Fans Sound Off On Her CMA Awards Absence

Underwood posted to her Instagram a photo of her back in Las Vegas, sitting on the stage and posing for a photo. She captioned the image, "We're back at our home away from home! 2 more days until #REFLECTION @resortsworldtheatre!"

Many fans were thrilled she was back for a show in Sin City, and many commented on the post. One die-hard said, "Can't wait!!! I have tickets for December 6th!!!!!" Another fan wrote, "Wish I was going to see you in Vegas! I hear they're great shows!" One more fan commented, "Have fun. Love the music."

See that post here.

The Instagram post before that included a video clip of highlights from her Resorts World residency, including a set of new images she posed for. She captioned that post, "Coming up next week…#REFLECTION @resortsworldtheatre! Who's going to join us in #Vegas?"

See that post and video clip here.

Country music often focuses on small-town people and their love of the land and fellow people in their hometowns. There have been many songs in the country over the years paying homage to the small town and hometowns, including Miranda Lambert's 2007 song "Famous In A Small Town." Eric Church scored a hit in 2014 with "Give Back My Hometown."

Miranda's 2007 song's lyrics include, "Whether you're late for church / Or you're stuck in jail / Hey, word's gonna get around / Everybody dies famous in a small town / Well, baby, who needs their faces in a magazine? / Me and you, we've been stars in this town since we were seventeen."

Carrie Underwood also sings of the charm of small towns in her 2012 chart-topper "Thank God For Hometowns," and it is hard to forget one of Montgomery Gentry's biggest hit over twenty years ago in 2002, "My Hometown."

The Cambridge Dictionary defines small towns as "small social groups where ordinary people live." The US Census Bureau determines a small town with a population between 25,000 and 50,000. It is slightly smaller than the average suburb, which is defined as a community within an urban area with between 30,000 and 70,000 residents.

What is fun in country music today is that many of today's big stadium headliners, like Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen, play for crowds bigger than the populations of the towns they were born in. As we pay tribute to hometowns, we look at five country superstars playing to audiences each night bigger than their hometowns.

As of 2021, Huntersville has a population of roughly 60,000. That is just a bit less than the crowd size Luke plays for each night on his stadium tour. Combs is now in New Zealand playing for big crowds overseas.

Morgan is playing for audiences each night on his stadium tour for crowds more than forty times the size of his hometown. In 2020, the population of Sneedville was just 1,315.

Lainey's hometown is tiny, with a population of just 211 reported in 2021. Wilson is now on her own headling arena tour playing for crowds of more than 10,000 people, and she just wrapped Luke Combs stadium tour as an opener playing for crowds over 60,000 each night.

Eric is from a very small town with just under 5,000 (4,927) as of 2021. Church is currently on his "Outsiders Revival Tour," playing outdoor arenas with more than twice his hometown's population at each stop.

Carrie often talks about her hometown being Checotah, Oklahoma, which has a population of 2,043 as of 2021, but she was actually born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, with a population of 36,790 (2021). Either way, opening for Guns N' Roses on their "World Tour" like she has last week (8/6) and a few more times this month, she is playing for packed rock crowds of over 60,000.