DOLLY PARTON

The “9 to 5” and “Jolene” singer, 76, will ring in 2023 co-hosting the second iteration of Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party (Dec. 31 on NBC and Peacock) alongside her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus. They will be joined in Miami by an A-list of musicians and celebrities for a live New Year’s celebration that’s sure to be a fun-filled night of entertainment. (You also can stream Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas on NBC.com and Peacock.)

How did it come about that you’re joining Miley on her New Year’s Eve show? Miley was in Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas and we had fun with that. It’s the strangest thing how we’re so bonded together and we seem to know each other and work so well together, and are similar in a lot of ways.

So, when we started talking about her

New Year’s Eve show, she said something like, “You’re going to have to do that with me sometime.” I said, “Oh, I’m not going to New York, it’s too cold.”

And she said, “I don’t do it from New York, I do it from Miami.” I said, “Well.”

Miley said, “Would you do it with me?” I said, “How about now?” So, we just decided on the spot before she left Dollywood that I was going to do it with her.

Any special plans for the night? We started talking about clothes while we were still at Dollywood. We started talking about skits.

We started talking about music and all that we can do, so it’s going to be a fun show. It’s going to be pretty much us being us.

“The whole idea of Christmas has always been special to me. The family gathers, the food, all the decorations everywhere. I love the giving and the receiving, I love the shopping and the wrapping presents, and I love the fun.”

If you weren’t doing the New Year’s Eve show with Miley, how would you normally ring in the New Year? With good friends, good food, blackeyed peas and all those Southern things that you do. You have family and friends over and you celebrate. At midnight you kiss somebody you don’t love and act like you do, or you kiss somebody and then you think you do love them. I just try to have fun with it like everybody else.

Do you make resolutions? I believe we ought to make them. I think it makes you feel better about yourself. But it’s like you eat everything you can get your hands on before you go on a diet. You know how you do that? You make every resolution you can in hopes that you’re going to do it, but then you fall off the wagon shortly after.

What are you hoping for in 2023? I’m hoping for more unity, for more love, for more compassion and

more of what we need right now before we all go down the tubes. I’m just hoping for a better year.

Every year I hope for that, and I will continue to hope that year in and year out.