Carrie Underwood to help rock in the new year

It’s fitting for Carrie Underwood to end an eventful 2015 with someone who helped put her on the road to superstardom.

The much-awarded singer reunites with the host of “American Idol,” of which she was the Season 4 winner, as the headlining performer on ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2016 With Ryan Seacrest” Thursday night.

Leesburg native Luke Bryan, Demi Lovato and Wiz Khalifa (featuring Charlie Puth) also are slated to appear in New York – with others including One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, Fall Out Boy, Andy Grammer, Ellie Goulding and Rachel Platten in the Hollywood segments guided by Fergie – but Underwood will have a major showcase with Seacrest and reporter Jenny McCarthy in Times Square throughout the night, both before and after the ball drops at midnight.

“I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of it before,” Underwood says, “and just being in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, there’s so many people and such a great energy. To be in the midst of the craziness, it’s really cool.”

Still, she hopes it isn’t too cool outdoor-temperature-wise: “That is a big deal, in terms of what I wear and how many layers I put on. And do I go for the long underwear?”

Underwood always appreciates getting back together with Seacrest, since she notes, “I’ve known him since Day One of all of this.”

Starting Fox’s final “American Idol” season Jan. 6, Seacrest deems Underwood “so special. She’s just so endearing, and you know how talented she is. It’s seamless for her, and to see the rise she’s had and her ability, it’s unlike most people in our business, let alone coming from the series. I think it adds to the narrative of the night, on New Year’s Eve, for both of us.”

Taking the “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” stage on the added strength of her latest release “Storyteller,” Underwood reasons that in having such new hits as “Smoke Break” and “Heartbeat” to sing, “I’m lucky enough to have a lot of songs that I love to perform, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve performed them as much as I probably have … but it’s always fun to have new stuff that you haven’t done, and that people haven’t heard, a million times.”

After many other recent TV appearances that also have encompassed ABC’s CMA Awards (as co-host again) and American Music Awards, CBS’ “Sinatra 100” concert special and Fox’s “American Country Countdown’s Top 10 Stories of 2015,” Underwood – a seven-time Grammy winner now nominated for another, for her single “Little Toy Guns” – is revving up for a several-month concert tour she’ll launch Jan. 30 in Jacksonville, Fla. It’ll be her first since she and NHL-player spouse Mike Fisher became the parents of 10-month-old son Isaiah, and she admits she’s still working on the balancing act between motherhood and career.

Mentioning she and Fisher had their first date on New Year’s Eve, she says she’s pondering how that night is “gonna work” where the baby is concerned. “Who’s going to watch him? Where’s he going to be? Can I even stay up that late? There’s a lot more to think about, especially since my husband is as busy as I am. It’s very different, but it’s good. (Isaiah is) the bright spot of every day, such a sweet little guy. We’re just making up the rules as we go.”