During Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani's From Apple Music With Love holiday radio special, the celebrity couple revealed a tradition that keeps Christmas supper interesting.
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"Okay, Gwen, let's talk about this," Shelton said. "So every year, and this goes back to 2016, I think, you and I have this tradition. It's really the only holiday tradition, I think, that we have, besides the obvious ones. We go out of our way to find a recipe. And it's always got to be the most difficult thing that you can imagine, whether it's like a beef Wellington, which I didn't even know what that was until I met you."
Stefani referred to this unpredictable exercise as an "anti-tradition."
"The fact that you wanted to make a tradition out of, it's almost like an anti-tradition, because a tradition is something that you've done your whole life, and that you keep repeating," she said. "But you keep trying to not repeat and make something new again and again and again. And that's your tradition. And that makes me really uncomfortable, because growing up as a child, my parents were very traditional. So like the idea that now I somehow have control over what we're actually putting in our mouths at Christmas, it makes me feel like I'm going to get in trouble. Like no, now we're going to try this recipe. So anyways, thank you for pushing me, pushing me to find new creative ways to feed our family."
Listeners also learned how time spent on Shelton's Oklahoma ranch inspired at least one Christmas song by Stefani.
"We were talking a lot about doing covers and doing other people's songs, and one of my favorite life moments was writing a Christmas song," Stefani said. "It was very spiritual. I was actually going for a run on your ranch and it was one of the first moments where I was like, 'Okay, I need to write a Christmas album. I'm going to go out and I'm going to think about it. I'm going to pray about it. And I'm going to run on your ranch.'
"And all of a sudden, this Christmas song called 'Christmas Eve' came to my brain, it was like a miracle," she continued. "And I started booking back to the lodge because I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I got to get my phone. Did I just write this song? How did this happen?' And it was like a pure Christmas miracle. And I was like, singing it to my mom, my mom and dad were there, and I was like, 'Does this sound like a church song? Did I copy this?'"
Both artists have recorded "Christmas Eve": Stefani for her 2017 album You Make It Feel Like Christmas and Shelton for the 2017 reissue of his holiday collection Cheers, It's Christmas.
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Shelton and Stefani's public displays of yuletide affection date back to their festive and funny "You Make It Feel Like Christmas" music video from 2018.
"We have to talk about our Christmas duet, 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas'," Shelton said. "Because it's, I mean it's got to be the centerpiece of this whole thing that we're doing here on Apple Music. And you brought up Sophie [Muller], because Sophie did the video for this song and she's been such a big part of our lives together. But let's talk about that song and writing it because I remember, I don't know where I was, but I know I was doing a show somewhere, and I was sitting on the bus and all I could think about was your Christmas record. Because you had sent me a couple of work tapes of things that you guys had already written. And I don't know why, but I started thinking about it, and I was trying to think, "Man how can I help in some way?" I really feel like I didn't have as much to do with it as you pretend like I do.
The duet was included on Stefani's 2017 holiday album of the same name. The couple performed the tune in 2018 during Gwen Stefani's You Make it Feel Like Christmas television special.
