Aiken has toured four times to promote this album. In late 2004, Aiken embarked on The Joyful Noise Tour, a 28-city holiday concert tour that ran from November through December. Each performance lasted approximately two hours and featured 30-piece orchestras, along with adult and children’s choirs recruited from each host city. The tour's official sponsor was Ronald McDonald House Charities.[3] Aiken returned the following year with The Joyful Noise 2005 Tour, a 36-city, 40-concert tour across the United States and Canada from November to December 2005. In addition to musical performances, the concerts incorporated a theatrical element featuring a traveling cast of actors, singers, and dancers, supplemented by supporting performers from each host city. Pop-classical pianist William Joseph served as the opening act and contributed musically to the tour.[4]
In December 2006, Aiken launched a Holiday Tour that visited 18 cities, primarily in the eastern United States. Performances were accompanied by local orchestras, which also opened each concert with a selection of seasonal music.[5] Aiken’s 2007 holiday tour, Christmas in the Heartland, consisted of 21 dates and focused on the eastern United States. The tour began on November 26 in Wichita, Kansas, and concluded on December 22 in Merrillville, Indiana. Local orchestras accompanied the performances. Holiday stories submitted by fans were incorporated into the show and read aloud as introductions to four song selections. Aiken traditionally concluded his Christmas tours with his signature holiday song, "Don’t Save It All for Christmas Day."[6]
AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt that "Aiken turns in a good holiday album. Actually, there are no surprises on the album — the song selections are all standards, the arrangements are traditional and unobtrusive, always emphasizing Clay's voice, and the record is given a safe, high-gloss sheen ideal for adult contemporary radio. If there are any surprises with Merry Christmas with Love[...] it's that his singing is better, more assured here than it was on Measure of a Man."[7]
Rolling Stone's Jolie Lash wrote: "There's more of Aiken's intense tenor that won fans over on the show, as he takes on "Mary, Did You Know," and "The Christmas Song," at times cutting a path somewhere between Andy Williams and Josh Groban. At others though, like on "Silent Night," things sound more akin to a live recording of the TV show, as Aiken's phrasing ends up stuttered, like he's missed a line — joining the backing choir after a verse has already started. As he hits the upbeat "Winter Wonderland," the lanky twenty-something reins things in for the finale, singing each note as perfect as if it were a Disney special".[9]
Merry Christmas with Love debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 270,000 copies in its first week.[1] This became Aiken's second US top-ten debut.[1] By the end of 2004, the album sold 1,004,000 copies.[12] The album set a new record for fastest-selling holiday album in the SoundScan era (since March 1991) and tied Celine Dion's record for the highest debut by a holiday album in the history of Billboard magazine.[13] On January 6, 2005, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over a million copies.[2] As of February 2011, the album has sold 1.4 million copies in the United States.[14]
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