Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Ready for some Christmas spirit?

OK, Halloween hasn’t even arrived yet, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be Christmas news, courtesy of some of your favorite Idols.

For starters, we’re just a week away from the release of David Archuleta’s “Christmas from the Heart” CD. In fact, you can head to Amazon.com and hear samples of the songs already.

The album includes David’s renditions of such classics as “Joy to the World,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Silent Night” and “The First Noel.”

This is what I call marketing genius. I mean, these types of song are perfectly suited for young David.

Think back to his Idol days. The only time he stumbled was when he stepped out of character and performed songs like Chris Brown’s “With You.”

In a video blog posted today, David says he’s “pretty crazy excited” about the upcoming release. He explains the album title is perfect “because se songs are just heartfelt.”

Avid fans could probably already tell you that David is recovering from having his wisdom teeth pulled. But, have no fear, he’s headed to Nashville for a writing session next week and already thinking about that next pop album.

The second bit of Christmas news comes courtesy of Grammy-winning and Oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson.

ABC announced Tuesday that she’ll be returning to her hometown of Chicago to film an hour-long primetime music special “Jennifer Hudson: I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

The special will be aired sometime in December. The release says a specific time and date haven’t been set.

For the special, Jennifer will be reliving her childhood Christmases with musical performances filmed at the small neighborhood church where she used to sing, at the music academy where she once studied and at other Chicago sites.

The bio on Jennifer’s MySpace page talks about the importance of her time in Chicago to her musical development.

There’s also no word on when these segments will be filmed. But certainly a whole lot closer to Christmas than last summer, when David was in the studio recording his album.