Exclusive: Oliver Hudson paints picture of ‘big’ Hallmark-worthy Christmas with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell

For over 40 years, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell and their blended family have spent Christmases in Aspen, Colorado, and now Goldie’s son Oliver is sharing the details of those “big” family gatherings.

“We’re very traditional in the sense that we read The Night Before Christmas – “Merry Christmas to all, to all a good night,” – and then we have someone who will dress up as Santa, running behind the trees and in the snow behind the lights, and the kids are losing their minds,” Oliver tells HELLO! at the Make-A-Wish Greater Los Angeles Gala on Friday November 5, which honored his mother.

The family are often pictured in the ski town of Aspen, where they have a family home known as Home Run Ranch which has been described by Goldie Hawn as their “safe haven” and a “time capsule” with decades-old furnishings.

Oliver is father to three children with wife Erin: sons Wilder Brooks (b. 2007) and Bodhi Hawn (b. 2010), and daughter Rio Laura (b. 2013), and he revealed that even his teenagers still find joy in the silly traditions, which were first started by Kurt.

That family joy is a trait that he has been “trying” to ensure stays passed down through the family.

“I’m saying words to [the teenagers] but I don’t know whether it’s resonating, but I give it a shot. I’m almost 50, but I’m a child as well so they see the way I am, and we try to parent by example more than by verbal lessons,” Oliver shares. 

“Even in times of tumult or if things aren’t going  the way that you want them to go, you can find nuggets of joy, and that’s what my mom is about,” adds Oliver. “Waking up in the morning is joyful – we have another day to live – and that’s how she’s lived her life and instead of explaining it to us, she lives it that way and then we as the kids hopefully take that in, take that on, and then pass it on to our children.”

Oliver grew up with his younger sister Kate, half-brother Wyatt Russell, and step-brother Boston Russell, and he says it’s important for the next generation of Russell kids to have the same experiences.

“That’s why we get together a lot, you know what I mean? All the cousins are best friends, and we’re a tight family. There’s no doubt about it,” he says.

Kate is mom to three children: sons Ryder Robinson, 21, (with ex-husband Chris Robinson), 14-year-old Bingham “Bing” Bellamy (with ex-fiancé Matt Bellamy), and daughter Rani Rose, seven, (with fiancé Danny Fujikawa).

Wyatt and his wife Meredith are parents to sons Buddy, four, and 22-month-old Boone.

Oliver has also recently reconnected with his biological father, Bill Hudson, with the actor sharing that he and his father “text almost every day” and that they have been considering working together on projects.

The pair reunited after Oliver – who was raised by Kurt and calls him ‘Pa” – shared a picture on Father’s Day of Bill with his two children when they were children, captioning it: “Happy abandonment day.”

“We’ve had amazing conversations, amazing lunches, throwing back some beers and crying and sort of understanding each other more and more. It was really beautiful, honestly, to sit down with him and look at my reflection, in a way,” Oliver told Us Weekly.

“I’m half of that dude, and I don’t see that in Kurt, to be fair, because he’s not biological. So when I look at my dad, he looks a lot like me. The way he thinks about life is a lot like mine. The way he operates — it was just so interesting.”