The special features Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Marc Anthony and Kim Burrell.

Among Harry Connick Jr.'s own compositions is a duet with country singer George Jones on "Nothing New for New Year".

An animated TV Christmas special "The Happy Elf", aired December 2, 2005 on NBC, and was released on DVD.

On November 4, 2004, Harry for the Holidays was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of one million copies in the U.S.[2] The album was also released as a DualDisc, with the DVD side containing both Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mixes and high quality LPCM (better than CD) versions of the album's 16 tracks.

Also included are excerpts from the above-mentioned network special; with performances of six songs, including his own "It Must Have Been Ol' Santa Claus" as well as a version of "Blue Christmas" (made famous, as Connick notes before the performance, by Elvis Presley during his 1968 comeback special).