Songfacts®:

• Written by Carol Hall, this tune originated in the 1978 Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. It was one of a handful of songs from the show that made it into the 1982 film adaptation, starring Dolly Parton as Miss Mona Stangley, who runs a brothel that's in danger of being shut down. When she's eventually forced to close up shop, Mona and the sex workers take turns singing about their uncertain futures and contemplating all the things they might do next, such as dying their hair, moving away, or getting drunk on apple wine. While Mona knows she'll be just fine and dandy, she doesn't sugarcoat the struggle, comparing it to the lean holidays where all she could afford was cheap hard candy.
  
  Parton recorded a solo version for the film's soundtrack. Aside from reaching #8 on the Country chart, it became a Christmas classic, even though it has little to do with the holiday.
  
  "It's kind of funny that people think it's a Christmas song, and it's really not," she told ABC News Radio in 2020. "It's really just about people having hard times and saying, 'It's like a hard candy Christmas,' like when you're so poor that all you get for Christmas is a piece of hard candy."
• Parton came from humble beginnings and knew what it was like to have a "Hard Candy Christmas." Born the fourth of 12 siblings in East Tennessee, she grew up sharing a one-bedroom cabin (the inspiration behind "My Tennessee Mountain Home") with her large family. While they couldn't afford luxuries, or even basic necessities at times, her parents managed to make Christmas special for the kids.
  
  "In the early days we didn't have electricity so we used to go out in the woods with my Dad in the afternoon, find the best tree that we could and we'd take it back in the house and decorate it with whatever Momma could find," Parton told ABC News Radio. "Buttons and popcorn, anything that we could have which was great, those days were great."
  
  There wasn't enough money for many gifts under the tree on Christmas morning, but the night before was always special. "Momma would always tell Christmas stories, read the Bible, then we'd go out to the barn and they would tell us that at midnight the cattle would kneel, like in honor. But we never could stay awake long enough to see it," she continued. "We could never see that happen. But we always had a little something... It didn't matter what we got... it was great for us."
• In 1997 RCA reissued Once Upon A Christmas, Parton's 1984 holiday album with Kenny Rogers, and added this tune to the tracklist. Shortly into the new year, the song re-entered the Country chart, where it peaked at #73.
• For her role in the film, Parton was nominated for Best Actress In A Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy at the 1982 Golden Globe Awards but lost to Julie Andrews for Victor/Victoria.
• The movie's soundtrack album, which also boasts a reworked version of Parton's 1974 hit "I Will Always Love You," peaked at #5 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. It was also a minor hit on the all-genre Billboard 200, where it reached #63. The album dropped in July 1982, four months after Parton released her Heartbreak Express album.
• Cyndi Lauper recorded this for her 2016 covers album, Detour, as a duet with Alison Krauss. The single went to #27 on the Adult Contemporary chart that year.
• This was also covered by Ru Paul, June Carter Cash, LeAnn Rimes, Reba McEntire, Kacey Musgraves, Tracey Thorn, Dan Bryk, and Leigh Nash, among others.
• Parton performed this on Bob Hope's Jolly Christmas Show in 1988.
• Carol Hall, who died in 2018 at age 82, contributed several tunes to Sesame Street, including the Grammy Award-winning "True Blue Christmas" from the 1978 special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street. She also wrote memorable songs like "The Two Lonely People," recorded by Tony Bennett, and "Jenny Rebecca," which landed on Barbra Streisand's 1965 My Name Is Barbra album. Hall was also a singer in her own right. She issued her debut album, If I Be A Lady, in 1970.