Hilary Duff has already gifted fans a sweet surprise ahead of the holidays with brand new music and an upcoming tour, but in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," the actress and singer said this "emphasis on nostalgia" has prompted some additional tricks up her sleeve for the set list.
"People are going to be really surprised by what songs I play -- it's just gonna be fun," she said. "We're planning a whole lot and working overtime over here. I'm just excited to see people face to face and share the new and the old with them."
Speaking to her fans rallying support around her return to music, she added, "The response was out of this world. I don't even have the words in my vocabulary. I am so appreciative -- it genuinely makes me, like, well up every time I start to talk about it."
Duff had the biggest music debut of her career with the release of "Mature" back on Nov. 6, marking her first new music in over a decade. In its first weekend, "Mature" rose to No. 2 on iTunes and was streamed hundreds of thousands of times on Spotify.
Duff's catalog also saw a massive 400% spike in search interest upon the announcement of her upcoming album, "Luck... or Something," Rolling Stone reported back in September.
"I always knew, like, 'Lizzie McGuire' was so impactful and some of my movies, but I don't know, I think it was just like a blind spot. I never really knew how much impact that my music had on people," she said.
Adding to her trip down the musically driven memory lane, the mother of four revealed that she recently introduced her kids to her 2002 Christmas album, "Santa Claus Lane."
"I've just started playing them my old Christmas record, and they love it -- they can't believe it's me, it's really cute," she said.
"They love 'Santa Claus Lane,' which is like an original song on that record," Duff added, referring to the title track.
She noted that her kids also love holiday classics including the Wham! hit "Last Christmas," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and more.
"We're big-time into Christmas music," she said, with the caveat that she "can't start playing it in front of [husband] Matt [Koma] until after Thanksgiving."
"But the kids and I are listening in the car on the way to school, like, starting in November," she said.
In tandem with this musical metamorphosis, Duff is ringing in the holiday season with Dunkin', starring in a new spot full of "funny nods to my old songs and my new songs," sprinkled with nostalgia and a glimpse of what makes her naughty or nice.
The ad shows Duff in a kitchen, treating herself to coffee and a box of festive Munchkins to help balance out the chaotic holiday hosting season, before the confections come to life and banter about her personal naughty and nice list.
"Making every millennial's dream come true when I announce new music -- nice," she exclaims in the video. "Moral of the story is, being all naughty or all nice, that's so yesterday."
The ad ends with an "off the cuff" moment, where Duff tosses a salted dark chocolate Munchkin that "looks like a little lump of coal" into the air and catches it in her mouth.
"I was embarrassed it would, like, hit me in the face -- then I was like, 'I f---ing caught it!' Everyone started laughing so hard, and they were like, 'We're probably keeping that,'" she said. "I worked with a director who I grew up with and I've been friends with a long time, so we have a lot of fun with the creative."
"We're a huge Dunkin' family in this house," Duff told "GMA," attributing her family's loyalty to her husband's roots in the Northeast, where the coffee and donut chain started. "I ate Munchkins for half a day and got to bring donuts home to my kids, and they were pumped."
She also shared her go-to coffee order.
"I'm an iced latte or an iced coffee girl with coconut syrup -- I'm obsessed with it," she said of the year-round flavor. "We always get it in the airport when we travel. My husband and I will get a giant one -- we need it for the day because we're traveling with four kids to the East Coast."
Duff said her husband, who co-wrote and produced her new album, has been a huge support in creating "something that I think is cool and that he thinks is cool."
"Matt never pushed me -- he does music every single day of his life," she said. "It wasn't until I was pregnant with [my youngest child] Townes that I was like, 'I really, I want to make a record.' I just felt, like, comfortable enough in my skin and not scared or not worried about how everyone [would] perceive it."
Duff explained that her new music speaks to "the things that have happened to me and that I've gone through -- the things that are, like, silly and easy, and the things that have been treacherous and hard.
She called this moment "a victory lap" because "it feels like it's made me believe in timing and waiting until something feels right to you to act on it."
"I'm so happy to meet people again at this age, and just to share this with them is going to be so much fun," she added.
