Aiken In The Christmas Spirit

Clay Aiken's been a very busy man lately.

Not only is he in the middle of a whirlwind 36-city holiday concert tour, he's got a platinum holiday CD called "Merry Christmas With Love."

Aiken stopped by The Early Show Monday to

sing a song (video)

from the CD, the classic "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

It's his sixth tour since his second-place finish on the second season of "American Idol."

Aiken tells co-anchor Rene Syler that he's "always loved the Christmas thing. We did it last year, we did it this year, and we tried to add something new and did a little theatrical stuff."

Aiken wrote the script for the Christmas show, the first time he's written a script for any show.

"I'm kind of a control freak," he admits to Syler. "I was going to let someone else do it. Then I got overwhelmed and said, 'If you want something done right, do it yourself.'

"It's about an older lady who's kind of lost the Christmas spirit. It's a traditional story. She's lost the Christmas spirit and a neighborhood boy comes in and helps her find it. I play, in some sense, a guardian angel who's kind of a soundtrack to the show."

And he enticed his high school choir teacher to play the lead.

"She bossed me around and now I'm bossing her around," he jokes.

Aiken's brother just returned from Iraq, and Aiken plans to have him and other Marines, along with other family members and members of the tour troupe, at his Los Angeles home for the holiday. Aiken calls it an extended family Christmas.