I would like to comment about the exceptionally caring and loving presentation of the holiday extravaganza for these children. I'm sure they'll never forget what Dr. Phil and Robin did for them to remind them how much everyone cares about helping restore their lives to a certain level of normalcy. But, I'd like to comment specifically as someone who has an unofficial fansite called CarrieNEWS.com, I may be biased to say my favorite celebrity guest was Carrie Underwood. I found her rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to be a heartwarming delight.
Some of you may not be familiar with Carrie. She's the 22-year-old college student who, with her mother and friends, decided to throw caution to the wind and audition for American Idol. Of course, we all know now that she won. But, there's an important lesson here in that one must be willing to take chances and go for their dreams. Now, she is the Billboard Award-winning artist who was fortunate to have participated in the Christmas in Washington concert, which was broadcast just last night. Imagine how your life would change if last year you were just sitting in your college classes and this year you were singing for the President! I get excited about all of these "pinch-me moments" as she calls them, and I've never even met Carrie.
I've never really been a "fan" before, but I found Carrie's genuinely sweet, down-to-earth nature to be very engaging. Beyond her amazing singing talents lies a person who is kind-hearted and caring; someone for whom I feel comfortable saying is indeed a good role model, an idol, as it were. Her inspirational and positive lifestyle is something I would wholeheartedly encourage those of you with children or teens to follow. Not to get overly heavy here, but in our current overly-coarsened pop culture environment, I find it tremendously refreshing to have someone representing our youth who is classy and just plain nice. Her positive influence on our children is not something to be discounted. Like I mentioned before, I've never really been a "fan" before, so all of this came somewhat out of the blue for me. But, I wholeheartedly recommend Carrie, her beautifully inspiring album Some Hearts, and her positive, hope-filled demeanor. I've found her to be very inspirational and I think many of you would, too.
By the way, I loved seeing Robin's end-of-show comments about Carrie's performance on the Christmas in Washington show. I believe she said "You know, you had the whole crowd out there with their mouths open at your voice and that song." Thank you to Dr. Phil and Robin for showcasing Carrie for us diehard fans and for helping to spread the joy of the Christmas season with so many people.
