Palm Springs resident Barry Manilow met the media at the McCallum Theatre on Tuesday to give some hints about his Christmas gift to the desert.

Tickets went on sale Oct. 26 for “A Gift of Love,” his program of five McCallum Christmas concerts benefiting 25 local charities.

He'll use a full orchestra, including horn and string sections, to perform a mix of hits and holiday songs from his three Christmas albums Dec. 4-5 and Dec. 7-9.

McCallum Director of Presentations & Theater Operations Mitch Gershenfeld said “response has been tremendous,” but tickets are still available at all levels.

Manilow, who has done a benefit concert for one or two charities a year for more than a decade, said he's been wanting to do a massive benefit concert for many local charities for years. His recent hip surgery, which forced him to convalesce at his Palm Springs home, gave him the time to create a unique Christmas program and his management company, Stiletto, did the rest.

“We started to put together, ‘How would this work if we did five charities a night for five nights?'” he said. “It was a complicated thing to do. The other thing that kept us working was my schedule. When was I going to find five nights to do this? So this year was the year.

“(But,) it got more and more complicated. How do you divvy it up? How do you tell the public that their money will go to where they want it? But, I think they got it. That's why it took so long.”

Manilow, appearing in jeans and a sport coat with black dress shoes, met with reporters individually on the McCallum stage. He walked comfortably and reiterated that he did not have hip replacement surgery.

He recently announced he's ending his long engagement at the Las Vegas Hilton, but wouldn't say who his next Vegas contract will be with because, “The ink isn't dry yet.”

He wasn't aware that the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage is offering Manilow fans special rates Dec. 4-10 and donating 10 percent of its room rates to “A Gift Of Love.” But he said he expects out-of-town fans to come in for this show just as they do for his other concerts.

“There's usually a batch of people that come to see our shows,” he said. “Like with the Hollywood Bowl (concert Oct. 24). That was an unbelievable night. I think there were a lot of people at that who came from around the world.”

Manilow, a Jewish Brooklyn native, said, “I'm just real good at” creating Christmas music.

His “In the Swing of Christmas” CD for Hallmark was nominated for a Grammy and he recently rereleased it on Arista with his original composition “Christmas Is Just Around the Corner” and a 1940s jazz version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

He expects to play several songs from the CD and create a big holiday scene with two giant Christmas trees.