From Live Daily:

Relaxing after recently taping an appearance on the Spanish-language TV channel Univision, “American Idol” runner-up David Archuleta is giggly.

“It was my first Spanish network performance, so it’s cool,” Archuleta said between giggles during an interview with LiveDaily. “It was really fun. It was at a school in Harlem [NY]. So I had a bunch of kids as the audience.”

Kids will be packing theaters this month and next when Archuleta embarks on a holiday tour in support of his debut Christmas album, “Christmas From the Heart.”

“It was really great to do,” Archuleta said of the collection. “It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work because it was during the summer tour that I was on. It was good and it all worked out in the end.”

Juggling a tour and the recording of a new album was tough for Archuleta, he admitted.

“‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Ave Maria’ were both pretty hard to record,” he said. “They were right after the end of tour. My voice was pretty worn out from the tour. So, having to go in the studio and record all day wasn’t the easiest thing. It was a challenge.”

To get into the spirit during the warm summer months, Archuleta said the studio hung Christmas lights and producers wore Santa hats. But all he had to do to get in the right frame of mind was think about the message of the songs themselves.

“Those songs have such powerful emotions in them and really make you feel some powerful things,” Archuleta said. “I’m just trying to think about that, what the song was about, the time of year, and celebrating what those stories are all about.”

Besides the standards, “Christmas From the Heart” features “Melodies of Christmas,” a song that Archuleta co-wrote. It is the lone original tune on the record.

“It was really fun to write,” said Archuleta, who took second place on “American Idol,” behind David Cook. “It was cool being able to give your own message to the Christmastime and the holiday season, telling your own Christmas story, in a way. It was fun to be able to do that, talk about the melodies of Christmas and what they do for people and how they bring back memories of people just by listening to those melodies.

The holiday is one of Archuleta’s favorites. Since he was younger, the 18-year-old has actively participated in Christmas festivities.

“I’ve always been really involved during the Christmastime with singing,” he said. “It’s just something I’ve been doing since I was little. From Christmas caroling when I was little to singing in church at little parties, family parties and neighborhood parties. To be able to do a Christmas album with those same songs on it is really cool.”

Meanwhile, Archuleta has been working on a new, non-holiday album, which he’s hoping will be released in 2010. So far, he has collaborated with Matt Squire, Victoria Horn, Daniel Bedingfield and Kina Grannis.

“I’ve been writing for the last month, just experimenting with different styles and different ways of writing,” Archuleta said. “It’ been a real fun time. After the tour, after the beginning of next year, I’ll start working more on stuff.”

Archuleta is trying to put his stamp the album, the follow-up to his self-titled debut, which spawned the hit “Crush.”

“I’ve been writing with different things in pop,” he said. “I’m trying to get more of my personality in the songs: ‘This is David. This is his story. This is what he wants to talk about. This is what’s been on his mind.’ I want people to feel ‘This is David talking. This is his song and this is what he’s saying.’ I want people to be able to feel that. I want people to relate to the things I’ve been thinking about.

“I love to sing different kinds of songs about different things and I want to be able to show more of my personality, be as real as I can with the songs,” he said. “I still like the pop stuff. I need to work stuff out with the label and see what they want me to sing. But I definitely want to get more involved with the writing. Writing is the best way to get your personality and your character into the song.”