Homer will get a Christmas morning treat when CBS broadcasts a holiday special with the Kilcher family. “Holiday Homecoming with Jewel” features Homer’s famous musical star, Jewel Kilcher, her aunt Mossy Kilcher, and some of the stars of the Discovery Channel reality TV show, “Alaska: The Last Frontier” — Jewel’s dad Atz Kilcher, Bonnie Dupree, Eve and Eivin Kilcher, and Nikos Kilcher. The special airs locally at 9 a.m. Dec. 25 on KTVA Channel 11. The show features singing with Jewel, Atz Kilcher, Dupree, Mossy Kilcher and Jewel’s 5-year-old son, Kase. There also is a segment of the family opening homemade gifts and celebrating a homesteading Christmas.
Atz Kilcher said the show came together at the last minute when CBS needed a Christmas show and asked Jewel to put one on.
“So Jewel invited some of us down,” he said in a phone interview from Telluride, Colo., where he’s visiting Jewel for the holidays at her mountain home. “Jewel asked me to whip out a homestead Christmas song, maybe with some yodeling in it.”
Atz Kilcher said he sat down by the woodstove and wrote the song, “Homestead Yodeling Christmas Harmony.” The song references Christmas on the original Kilcher homestead found by the matriarch and patriarch of the clan, Ruth and Yule Kilcher, with a line about “Mom and Dad cooking up the secret recipe,” he said.
“What it came down to me was my mom and dad somehow found a recipe for raising a pretty talented crew,” Kilcher said.
The episode was taped Dec. 11 and 12 in Nashville.
“It was quite an adventure,” Mossy Kilcher said.
A highlight of the show was singing with Jewel “Daydream Land,” a lullaby Mossy Kilcher wrote when she was 13. Jewel lived with Mossy in the summers at her Seaside Farm in Homer when Jewel was a teenager and dealing with the stress of her parents’ break-up, Mossy Kilcher said.
“Jewel would be my horse-riding sidekick, helping me out on the farm,” Mossy said. “What was nice was I reconnected with Jewel. It was a wonderful opportunity to be with family down there.”
Jewel taught her son, Kase, Mossy’s lullaby, and the three of them sang it during the gift-opening segment of the show.
“When I heard him sing that song, I had tears rolling down my cheeks,” Mossy said. “That was the most special part of the whole trip to me.”
Atz Kilcher said his older sister has the most memories of the early homesteader ways.
“She blew everyone away down there,” Atz said. “People looked at her like she was the real deal.”
Mossy said she had a bit of stress for the show: what to wear.
“I live in Boggs and snowpants and flannel shirts year round,” she said. “Holy cow: What am I going to wear?”
Mossy found an upcycled skirt from Skinny Owlz by Chelsey Arno at Ptarmigan Arts and wore that with a cowboy shirt and hat. After the show, Kilcher said everyone has now come to call her “Aunt Mossy.” She also got a treat when the family went to a telethon concert organized by Dolly Parton to raise money for the victims of the Tennessee wildfire. Mossy got a backstage pass and met Parton.
“That was a super unexpected fun bonus,” Mossy said, “I just adore Dolly Parton.”
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
