Well, you don’t have to, but that’s what’s cool about the show that Faith Hill is hosting tonight on CBS, “A Home for the Holidays”.  This is the 11th annual, and one of the reasons this show comes back year after year is that it actually does inspire people to adopt kids.  Stories from people like Faith, who was adopted at birth, and other celebs who were either adopted or have adopted kids help make the point about how great it can be.  Tonight’s show also features performances from Carrie Underwood and Reba McEntire.  That’s at 8 o’clock tonight on CBS (6).

Yes. Kissing the same guy, that is.  The dude who starred in Miley Cyrus’ movie and in Taylor Swift’s video for “You Belong With Me.”  His name is Lucas Till, and a while back I reported that there was some speculation about him and Taylor.  Turns out it was true, if you believe Lucas himself.  He says they dated for a little bit but there was “no friction,” meaning they got along too well and were more like friends.  Since he also dated Miley while working on her movie, he was asked the inevitable question about who was the better kisser, and he voted for Taylor.  So that’s literally “kissing and telling.”  I wonder if Taylor will write a song about him to get even!

Lots of country artists support charities in various different ways, and we appreciate everything they do and every penny they raise.  But this is really the most serious commitment to an issue I’ve ever seen.  Jimmy Wayne, best known for “Do You Believe Me Now” and his new song, “Sara Smile”, wants to bring attention to the cause of at-risk and homeless kids and teens.  (Jimmy was in and out of foster homes throughout his whole childhood, and has been active with this cause ever since).  So is he staging a charity show or visiting a facility?  Nope.  He’s WALKING HALFWAY ACROSS AMERICA.  For real.  He will leave Nashville on the 1st of January, and then he will walk and walk until he gets to Phoenix, Arizona.  No tricks here, no help from anyone.  He’ll bear the elements and sleep on the ground as he goes, and he’s hoping this will draw attention and funding to the plight of kids who live like this all the time.  If you want to show Jimmy your support, you can find out more about where to donate and how to follow his progress by clicking here.

Well, not to get married, but to get divorced.  LeAnn and her estranged hubby Deane Sheremet have actually set an exact date for their divorce to go final, and it’s June 19, 2010.  So I guess starting this June, LeAnn can start dating again?

Keith and his family are Down Under for the holidays, and when Keith stopped in to Tym Brennan’s guitar store he saw a young boy playing around with a “fuzz pedal,” which makes your guitar sound all rock & rolly when you press it.  Then, it all went down like this:

Urban:  “How much is the pedal that kid’s playing?” 

“$450,” Brennan says.

Urban: “Put it on my card with the guitar.”

Tym: “Do you want me to tell the kid?”

Urban: “Wait till I leave.”

Brennan recounts: “Keith pays, then on the way out, shakes the youth’s hand and says, “Merry Christmas”.

“Was that Keith Urban? He said ‘Merry Christmas’ to me,” the kid beams.

“Yeah,” says Brennan, “He just bought you that pedal.”

The kid was so “blown away” he was shaking, Brennan tells us.

And it’s a big one, too.  Carrie Underwood’s hockey stud fiance Mike Fisher gave her a lovely ring, and what I love about that picture is it looks like she’s goofing on that thing people do where they gesture wildly with their big rock until someone finally notices or comments on it. 

Mike Fisher even gave a brief and fairly reluctant (let’s face it, kind of boring) interview about the engagement.  It’s clear he and Carrie don’t want to share too many details, and that’s certainly fine by me.  But if you’d like to see the brief/reluctant/boring interview, it’s right here.  The upside is that you can see how cute he is.

Now we have it from the man himself, Mike Fisher.  While preparing for tonight’s hockey game with the Senators, he confirmed that he popped the question to Carrie Underwood yesterday and she has agreed to be his bride.  This morning at 6, it was just a Twitter rumor.  Then by 8, friends had spilled the beans to the Ottowa paper.  And now, Mike himself has talked to the paper.  Read his quotes here.

There’s a guy in England who had a stroke, and as a result has a type of blindness where he only sees partially.  Example:  at his computer screen, he might only see one side of it.  So doctors started experimenting with things that might activate his brain in different ways.  They started playing his favorite music, which happens to be Kenny Rogers, and what do you know???  Suddenly he could see better.  So this man, who’s in his 70s, says he’s going to get one of those newfangled music player thingies and play Kenny Rogers all the time.  Now he can go to that website menwholooklikekennyrogers.com and see ALL the men who look like Kenny Rogers.

What if you woke up today and Toby Keith was your boss? That’s what has happened to a few country stars as Toby announced the merger of his record label, Show Dog, with Universal South. Artists like Joe Nichols, Randy Houser and Phil Vassar are all on the Universal label, which means they now have a country star for a boss! No big changes to the line-ups of either label have been announced…yet.

Billy Ray Cyrus tends to say the same thing each time Miley gets caught doing something a little bit controversial, like dancing on a pole.  It’s usually something along the lines that he likes his kids to be able to express themselves as artists and do what they want to do.  So I guess that’s probably how he feels about this video that Miley posted of her not-quite-10-year-old daughter dancing around to a song called “Smack That.”