‘CMA Country Christmas’: Watch For King & Country’s Stellar ‘Little Drummer Boy’ Performance

ABC will air the 2019 CMA Country Christmas special Tuesday night once again, giving fans country music fans another chance to see For King & Country’s dazzling performance of “Little Drummer Boy.” The Australian Christian pop duo blew fans away during the special’s premiere Dec. 4 with a drum-heavy rendition of the beloved holiday tune.

CMA Country Christmas is set to air Dec. 24 on ABC, following the airing of Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. Hosted by Trisha Yearwood, the special also features holiday performances from Lady Antebellum, Kristin Chenoweth, Chris Young, Runaway June, Rascal Flatts and other beloved country singers.

For King & Country is a Nashville-based duo comprised of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone. Formerly known as Joel & Luke, the duo changed their name in 2009 after signing with Warner Music Group with Ben Glover as their producer.

“We wanted a band name that carried more meaning. We were in the studio recording our debut record that Joel had the idea of All The King’s Men, like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme,” Luke said at the time of the name change. “Our producer overheard our conversation and swung around in his chair and said, ‘What about For King & Country?’ And we all felt a sense of providence in that moment. “For King and Country” was the battle cry of English soldiers willing to lay down their lives for their king and their country. And now it has become our mission, to lay down our lives for our King and our country.”

If you can’t tune in for the special, you can watch the band’s performance below.

The beloved annual country music holiday special also had a major change in 2019, with Yearwood stepping up to the hosting gig replacing Reba McEntire.

“I think a little nervousness is good,” Yearwood shared with PopCulture.com and other outlets about the big gig. “There’s this line in ‘Every Girl in This Town’ that says, ‘You got this baby, so what if you don’t?’ I think that we all have that thing. I don’t know, you probably do too. Hopefully you do. You think everyone’s going to figure out, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ There’s that moment where you do what you do, that you think, ‘Do I really know and why am I here?’

“I think that that little voice is always in my head a little bit,” she continued. “But I also do have a supreme kind of confidence in that I do know how to sing. And I know when I’m going to go out there and do something that I can do. And it’s been interesting that the thing that has helped me not be so nervous is especially on a show like this, to pick out someone younger than me who’s more nervous than me and go up to them and make them not be nervous. And that helps me. They don’t realize that it’s helping me.”

CMA Country Christmas airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.