The Kelly Family has started their Christmas tour. A total of 27 concerts are planned. The band members returned to the stage on Friday evening in Krefeld after a nearly three-year break from touring and welcomed around 5,000 spectators. The tour is scheduled to end in Frankfurt/Main on December 29th.

"I don't find the change of location on the tour stressful. I like traveling and the route is well timed with feasible distances," Joey Kelly told dpa in the run-up to the tour. "It feels normal to us. It's no different than it was back in the '90s when we were also touring. It's a musician's business, playing in a different city almost every night."

The Kelly Family will also be releasing a Christmas EP with two new tracks next week entitled "One More Happy Christmas". A new Christmas album will follow. Kathy, Patricia, Jimmy, John, Joey and Paul want to play some of the band's biggest hits alongside world-renowned Christmas songs on the tour.

The group, made up of members of the Irish-American extended Kelly family, have already sold more than 20 million records worldwide with their folk-pop and have placed several albums at the top of the charts. The family also attracted attention with their unusual lifestyle. For a time she lived in a double-decker bus, on a houseboat and at Gymnich Castle near Cologne.