Raleigh’s Holderness Family of ‘Christmas Jammies’ fame to compete on ‘The Amazing Race’
Updated March 2, 2022: How did Kim and Penn Holderness finish on “The Amazing Race” finale? Check out our recap here.
Forget Christmas Jammies. This festive season, Raleigh’s Holderness family has an announcement that’s sure to top their viral holiday classic.
Penn and Kim Holderness, the former television news anchors turned full-time internet personalities, are competing on Season 33 of “The Amazing Race,” CBS announced Friday in a cast announcement.
“The Amazing Race is an institution. We’ve been fans of it for a long time. It’s always kind of been on our bucket list,” said a visibly thrilled Penn Holderness in a video posted Friday on the Holderness Family’s Facebook page. The announcement video had been viewed nearly 248,000 times as of Friday evening.
Penn, 47 and Kim, 45, will compete with 10 other teams of two in a race around the world in pursuit of a $1 million prize waiting for them at the finish line, CBS said in a news release. Other teams include married educators, singing police officers, and twin sisters who are both radio personalities. Connie and Sam Greiner, a married couple from Charlotte, also will compete.
The new season will be one like no other, thanks to a pandemic-forced break — the longest interruption in the show’s history, according to CBS.
Filming began in February 2020 with teams completing three legs (including two in the United Kingdom) before the coronavirus pandemic shut down production for more than a year and a half.
The Holderness family drew national attention in 2013 when they released their first of countless viral videos: “Christmas Jammies,” an end-of-the-year family newsletter, but in video form. The video went viral — it has over 18.3 million views — and catapulted the couple into a career making even more humorous videos and parodies.
The family also appeared on a reality show, “The Holderness Family,” on the UP network in 2014. They also have a podcast about working together as a family and published their first book, “Everybody Fights,” in March.
Nervous about the challenges
Despite regularly displaying their self-deprecating humor online, the couple said in their Facebook video that they were a little nervous about going on the show and being away from their two children for so long. Not to mention, the show is known for putting contestants through a whirlwind of grueling physical and mental challenges spread throughout the globe.
“Like all things, when Kim got the call to be on the race, she sort of over-thought it a bit, she had a lot of emotions,” Penn Holderness said in the Facebook video.
“I don’t overthink things,” Kim interjected.
“You sometimes overthink things,” Penn continued, imitating his wife: “You were like, ‘This is on my bucket list, but I’m going to miss my kids, but a million dollars! How will we get our work done? We can see the world! What am I going to wear? I need to go shopping right now and go online and buy a lot of stuff.’”
The couple poked fun at themselves for being among the oldest contestants on the show. “I wasn’t sure,” Penn said, “but we were,” they added.
How young were the other contestants? “A lot of them had never heard of Punky Brewster,” Penn Holderness said, referencing the ‘80s TV show.
The couple finally decided to take the plunge after hearing their daughter’s perspective.
“Are you just going to remember a random month in February, or are you going to remember going on ‘The Amazing Race’?” Kim Holderness recalled her daughter asking her.
Pandemic shuts down ‘The Amazing Race’
But barely a few weeks into production in the United Kingdom, the pandemic started shutting everything down, and the Holdernesses found themselves back home in Raleigh. It wasn’t clear if or when the rest of the season would be shot, they recalled.
Production resumed this fall in Switzerland — 20 months after being halted, CBS said — and filming of the remainder of the race continued in France, Greece and Portugal, before concluding in Los Angeles, where the first team to cross the finish line was crowned the winner.
In addition to COVID testing and placing contestants in a “bubble”-living environment to isolate them from others, contestants also took private chartered flights in-between legs of the race, according to the Holdernesses and CBS.
The Emmy-winning reality show debuted in 2001 and is celebrating being on the air for 20 years.
Season 33 of “The Amazing Race” will kick-off on CBS with a two-hour premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 5 at 8 p.m.
Episode Recaps of The Amazing Race
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 6:52 PM.
