Blake Shelton’s 2012 holiday album, Cheers, It’s Christmas, featured several famous guests. But one collaboration had a particularly personal connection: “Time for Me to Come Home,” a song Blake Shelton wrote and recorded with his mother, Dorothy Shackleford.
The subject was something many listeners could understand immediately—going home to see Mom at Christmas. On this recording, the mother’s voice belonged to the woman who had helped create the song.
An Idea From Mom
While preparing the album, Blake Shelton asked Dorothy Shackleford to think of ideas for a Christmas song. Blake Shelton then took one of those ideas, and mother and son developed it together.
Dorothy Shackleford already had experience writing songs. According to her publisher’s biography, Dorothy Shackleford had written dozens of songs over the years, including collaborations with Blake Shelton. This particular project gave that shared interest a place on a holiday album.
In an August 2012 interview with Country Countdown USA, Blake Shelton explained the collaboration plainly: Dorothy Shackleford helped write the song and also sang on the recording. Blake Shelton described its theme as returning home to see your mother for Christmas.
Then Blake Shelton offered a revealing assessment, calling it “my favorite thing on the album.”
With an album full of familiar seasonal music and celebrated performers, that choice made the family collaboration stand out.
A Familiar Christmas Feeling, With a Personal Connection
“Time for Me to Come Home” draws its warmth from a recognizable relationship. For many families, Christmas involves arranging a journey, making a phone call, or hearing a parent ask when everyone will arrive.
Knowing who helped write and sing the recording gives that familiar idea another dimension. Dorothy Shackleford contributed directly to the song’s creation and performance. Listeners hear a mother and son sharing a piece of music about the pull of home.
That connection leaves room for listeners’ own memories. Some may remember a long drive back to a childhood house. Others may think of the person who always checked whether they would make it home for dinner.
The recording does not require those memories to be identical. Its central situation is ordinary enough for many people to recognize something of their own family in it.
The Song Became a Book
The story continued after the album’s release. Dorothy Shackleford collaborated with author Travis Thrasher on the novel Time for Me to Come Home, published in October 2013.
The book follows a fictional country singer, Heath Sawyer, during a Christmas journey. Penguin Random House describes the novel as being based on the song and incorporating anecdotes inspired by Blake Shelton and Dorothy Shackleford’s real holiday memories.
The distinction matters: the novel tells a fictional story, while drawing on the family experiences and homecoming theme behind the music.
By helping develop the idea into a book, Dorothy Shackleford gave the original collaboration another form. A subject first explored through a song could now unfold across a longer Christmas story.
Another Home on Television
In 2018, the connection reached television with the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries film Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas, starring Megan Park and Josh Henderson.
From recording to novel to film, the idea found several ways to reach an audience. Yet the beginning remains the most appealing part of its history: Blake Shelton asked his mother for Christmas song ideas, and the two made something together.
Returning to the original recording brings that family connection back into focus. Alongside Blake Shelton’s voice is Dorothy Shackleford’s, preserved in a song about finding the way home for Christmas.