The Boot (Dec. 13th 2010)

Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton hit the road for the holidays

Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton have most likely earned themselves a place on Santa's nice list, especially after the amazing year they have had, which included their engagement in May. The two, who started dating about five years ago, have developed their own Christmas traditions, and they involve a lot of traveling.

"Plans for the holidays are pretty simple. We're having the Shelton-Lambert Family Tour I call it, where we go from one house to the next and it takes three days to actually get Christmas," Blake tells The Boot. "Everybody knows what I'm talking about. You can't go to that family member's house because they hate them, so you have to go to both of them. So, we have that, then we go to Texas and come back to Oklahoma. It takes about four days to get Christmas over with."

Families have their own specific traditions, and when two of those families blend, it takes a bit of an adjustment and compromise. "I'm adjusting now to how Miranda and her family handle Christmas every year, because these things seem like they were set in stone," he admits.

As far as his favorite holiday tune, it would have to be 'I'll Be Home for Christmas.' "I don't really know why. I love the melody of the song," Blake says. "In fact, I've only recorded one Christmas song, and that was it. I love what it says, especially once I moved to Nashville. I was just a kid, a teenager, and I was going to be going home for Christmas that year. That song was just kind of my life, but nothing mattered to me more than getting back home after being gone for about six months or eight months without ever having gone home, and this was the first time I'd ever been away from home. I guess for that reason it still is my favorite Christmas song, and I'm lucky enough to say that I've never missed a Christmas at home to this day."

The pair will have a lot of time to share Christmas joy -- Blake does not have a date on the books until he hits the stage in Lacross, Wisc., January 28, while Miranda will ring in the new year with a two-night stand in Temecula, Calif., December 30 and 31.