In case you haven’t been participating in Christmas this year, you may have missed the fact that Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award-winning singer, actress and producer Jennifer Hudson has taken over. After releasing her first holiday album The Gift of Love, she’s performed at both the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and NBC’s Christmas in Rockefeller Center.
“I’m a holiday fanatic,” Hudson tells the Weekly. “It’s always been a dream of mine to do a holiday album and I’m glad I finally got to create it.”
Now she’s bringing her holiday spirit to the Las Vegas Strip, and you better watch out: “If you’re not one of those people who’s into the holidays, by the time I’m done, you will be.”
Since you’re a holiday fanatic, how difficult was it to choose the right songs for the album?
That’s what took the longest time, because every time that would come around, I’d get overwhelmed. It finally came down to which ones are personal to me. “The Christmas Song,” I grew up listening to my grandma playing that every Christmas. “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” every young girl in the church choir sang that. “Carol of the Bells” is what we sang in high school. Each song is a piece of me in some way.
Are you able to maintain your own holiday traditions this year between all these big shows and events?
I’ll be home in time for Christmas. We’ve been working all year long and we’re getting closer and closer, but we’ll make it. As long as we can bring the family together, that’s the most important thing, and that’s tradition enough for me. We just get to do it on a bigger scale this year.
You’ve had Mariah Carey as a guest on your talk show, and she used to do Christmas concerts every year at Caesars Palace when she had a residency there. I always wondered why there weren’t more Las Vegas holiday shows like that one because it’s such a festive place already. Is an annual holiday show in Vegas something you’d be open to?
I think you just gave me a new dream. I didn’t think of that. That’s a great idea. I like it.
How are things with your talk show? Are you enjoying the evolution of that project? And has working in TV had some sort of impact on the way you put together your live performances?
Oh yes, everything. I’m like a sponge, I just absorb it and it comes out in some form. It’s all storytelling, putting things together conceptually, and it’s been teaching me all about those elements. Even when recording songs on an album, putting that sequence together, thinking about the context of why am I singing this, it’s helping me see things in a more well-rounded way.
Every time I come out [on the TV show] it’s like, am I dreaming? Is this real? It still feels very surreal in a lot of ways. But the biggest difference is I finally get to sit on the couch. [Laughs.] In my normal work, I don’t get to sit on the couch and talk, and I love talking. If I’m not singing, I’m talking.
JENNIFER HUDSON December 21 & 22, 8 p.m., $65-$250. BleauLive Theater, ticketmaster.com.
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