'This has been a hard year,' the talk show host admits.
Kelly Clarkson is doling out some holiday wisdom! In a digital segment for The Kelly Clarkson Show, the 38-year-old host gives advice on how viewers should handle some awkward situations during this festive time.
The segment comes amid Clarkson's divorce from Brandon Blackstock, with whom she shares River, 6, and Remington, 4. Blackstock also has two children from a previous relationship.
In addition to suggesting that her Christmas songs, "Under the Mistletoe" and "Underneath the Tree," be added to all holiday playlists, Clarkson also advises people to opt for homemade gifts over store bought ones, largely because of her own experience of being crafty with her kids.
"I love making stuff. Not only because it's fun to create something, but also it's, like, therapeutic. You're just sitting there. Like, when I color with my kids, yeah I'm doing it because it's fun with them, and they love it, and they ask me to do it, but also it's, like, really soothing, oddly," she shares. "I used to laugh at people when I saw adults with coloring books... and I didn't get it. Now I am one of them. It's really therapeutic and this has been a hard year."
Clarkson also offers advice to one viewer who got caught in a lie.
"I do Christmas with my dad's not-so-fun side of the family. This year, I used quarantine as an excuse to go with my mom's side instead by telling my aunt we were staying home, then accidentally put her in a group chat about 'going with the fun ones,'" the viewer writes in. "Am I going to hell?"
"No, but you are in so much trouble," Clarkson says with a laugh. "Here's the thing, don't lie. Just own it. And then be like, 'Look, maybe this is your opportunity to become the fun ones.' Just own it. You can't lie."
"In that situation you just gotta be like, 'Sorry it was a turd statement. I do stand by it, but maybe let's do something to turn it around.' A fun little family game maybe come up with? I don't know," she continues. "But basically, you dug that hole and you're just sitting in it. It happens to the best of us."
As for what to do when politics comes up, Clarkson gives her two cents, but worries that "most people" wouldn't like her answer.
"I don't like when people say, 'Don't talk about faith or politics or all the big issues'... That's how we get here. That's how we get to 2020. 'Cause no one talks about stuff. That doesn't fix the problem. It doesn't help in any way, shape or form on either side," she explains. "Why would you not want to have conversations about stuff like that? Because maybe, just maybe, what I think about something isn't really right and I didn't really think about it in that way or vantage point or perspective."
Clarkson goes on to use her relationship with her mother, Jeanne Taylor, as an example of having differing opinions, but a shared respect.
"My mother and I are very different on some things, but wanting to be loved and respected and helpful and [have] a servant's heart, there are a lot of core things there," she says. "Granted, we are different in some other ways. But that's not a problem."
"That's one reason why I love that I was born in America... People got to come here and you got to believe what you wanted to believe, and you got to who you want to be. That should be celebrated," she continues. "But I do think no progress will happen, no change will happen, unless we talk about it."
Watch the video below for more on Clarkson.
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