NEW YORK (Billboard) - Jessica Simpson will unveil two new releases on Nov. 23: an expanded edition of a seasonal album previously available only at 7-Eleven stores in North America and a concert DVD.
Named after Simpson's grandmother Joyce, "ReJoyce -- The Christmas Album" (Columbia) adds four songs to the track listing of its prior edition, including a duet with husband Nick Lachey on "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" and "What Child Is This." An acoustic version of Simpson's cover of Robbie Williams' "Angels" is the lone track from the 7-Eleven edition not appearing on "ReJoyce."
Simpson and Lachey will extend the holiday theme on their Dec. 10 ABC variety special, which will feature performances of four songs from the album. Lachey's brother Drew and Simpson's sister Ashlee are scheduled to appear.
Simpson is also expected to be on hand at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in New York's Rockefeller Center, to be broadcast Nov. 30 on NBC. In addition, early December visits to ABC's "Good Morning America" and "The View" and "CBS Early Show" are in the works.
As for the DVD "Reality Tour Live," showcasing the July 30 Los Angeles stop on her summer tour, it features a 15-song set that includes the hits "With You" and "Irresistible" interspersed with snippets from Simpson and Lachey's MTV reality show, "Newlyweds." Among the bonus items are the video for "Angels," behind-the-scenes footage and a photo gallery.
Despite rumors that their marriage is ending, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey have managed to churn out yet another TV Special for ABC. Based on the promos and my knowledge of Nick and Jessica's talent, I think it's safe to say that their Christmas Special is going to suck more balls than a Mexican prostitute. And in case you're unfamiliar with Mexican prostitutes, that's a whole lot of sucking. Maybe everybody will be so distracted by Nick's uglyass sweaters that they won't notice how terrible everything else is.
"Basically we have a magic lodge where we can make anything happen," explains Newlyweds' Nick Lachey in the setting of a Christmas special he has made with wife Jessica Simpson. "Any fantasy performance we want to create, we can."
That means TV's most notorious reality television couple get together with a ghostly Bing Crosby for a song, a reunion of Lachey's old band 98 degrees, and baby photos of Jessica being used to illustrate the "newborn king to see" bit of The Little Drummer Boy (really).
Nick And Jessica's Family Christmas could be the Very Brady Christmas of the new millennium.
"I can't wait," says The Panel's Tom Gleisner, who confesses to being an aficionado of that strange brand of Christmas television kitsch. "And anything involving the Brady Bunch getting back together is always a bit of a treat at this time of year," he says. "We just don't have enough of that in our lives."
Much as he enjoys the naff side of Christmas TV, Gleisner and his Panel cohorts have recognised that viewers might like something a bit different on Christmas Day. So they are back for a second year with a special live show on Christmas night to raise money for charity and give people a break from the imported shows that tend to dominate Christmas Day television.
"Christmas Eve is full of anticipation and excitement but by Christmas night there's something of an anti-climax to it," says Gleisner. "Add to that if you happen to be alone or you've lost someone during the year, it really is one of those nights that people can do it a bit tough. So we thought, 'Well gee, of all the nights for television to abandon viewers it seems such a wrong one'."
As happened last year, Channel 10 will donate advertising revenue from the show, sponsors are on board with special donations and viewers will be asked to join in giving to a wide range of charities.
A slightly more venerable tradition of Christmas TV - and one that tends more towards the sublime than the ridiculous - is Carols By Candlelight.
"I think that Carols By Candlelight is a show that bridges that gap between the secular world and the spiritual world," says Carols' musical director John Foreman. "I mean Carols is a mainstream show on a commercial network in prime time and yet it's a show that talks about the story of a particular religion. And whether or not people take part wholly in that religious celebration I think they like a sense of community and of some kind of spirituality."
Foreman - best-known as the musical director on Australian Idol - says it's a tricky task to match up the performers at the concert to songs in order to keep traditionalists happy but also to keep the show new and lively each year.
"This year Paulini is going to be doing a version of Amazing Grace which is a beautiful traditional song and because she comes from a church background and has that wonderful gospel tradition, her reading of a traditional carol is going to bring a new flavour to it," he says. "But we do have to be very careful the way we plan it, there is a lot of responsibility that comes with this sort of job."
That sense of responsibility also weighs heavily on Stephen Cleobury, musical director of King's College Cambridge and thus responsible for perhaps the world's most cherished Christmas television tradition, the annual Carols From King's.
"It's something that the public feels it owns," he says. "And so therefore people have opinions about how it ought to go. I have to find that right balance. Obviously when I sit down to plan the repertoire for the service each year there are certain things that go in automatically. It would be unthinkable not to begin the service with Once In Royal David's City, for example."
That particular carol has even developed its own tradition, so integral has it become to the carol service. The first verse is sung by one of the choristers as a solo - and the choirmaster doesn't indicate which boy has won that honour until the very last moment so the chosen child doesn't have time to get nervous.
"That is a little ruse that works rather well," says Cleobury. "I just point to him and ask him to step forward and do it. The good thing about it is the ones who haven't been chosen are usually very generous towards the one who does do it, so that's a nice part of the tradition too, which of course people in general don't see."
Carols From King's, Thursday, ABC, 8.30pm (repeats Christmas Day at 9.45am); Nick And Jessica's Family Christmas, Friday, Seven, 7.30pm; Carols By Candlelight, Friday, Nine, 9pm; The Panel's Christmas Wrap, Saturday, Ten, 8.30pm
- The Daily Telegraph
There's actually going to real TV shows on this Christmas, not just the animated Nanny Christmas Special (again) Thank God
Jessica Simpson Reassured By Christmas Special Ratings
'Extra' caught up with Jessica Simpson on the set of 'The Dukes of Hazzard', where she said her highly-rated Christmas special with hubby Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees helped them deal with all the tabloid rumors. "It reassured us that people still like us as a couple, and they don't believe all the covers and rumors," Jessica said. "It really made us feel good about our relationship again."
It was very corny, but it was good. The singing was bit OTT but the outtakes/ bloopers at the end was funny. Great to see Ashlee and Jessica performing together. Their voices work really well, although, Jessica did kind of drown Ashlee out.
Pop star Jessica Simpson gave her husband Nick Lachey a dream gift over the Christmas holidays -- a Ferrari.
Simpson, who has been married to Lachey for two years, decided to spare no expense on her husband, and was thrilled when she received a large, flawless emerald ring in return.
She coos, "We had a big Christmas. I'll be wearing my ring with my T-shirts!"
not just the animated Nanny Christmas Special (again) Thank God 
