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This holiday season, NHPR brings you special programs from around the country and around the world - both well-loved favorites and brand new.Tune in and celebrate with us!

Holiday Specials 2013

SigurDD via Flickr Creative Commons

Wednesday, November 27

7:00 PM     Hanukkah Lights 2013

A perennial holiday favorite, Hanukkah Lights features Hanukkah stories and memoirs written by acclaimed authors, expressly for the show, as read by Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz.

Thursday, November 28

9:00 AM     Giving Thanks: A Celebration of Fall, Food, and Gratitude

Stories and music for Thanksgiving, with special guests actor Julia Sweeney and best-selling author Anne Lamott.

2:00-4:00 PM     Best of the Best: The 2013 Third Coast Festival Broadcast

8:00-10:00 PM     Best of the Best: The 2013 Third Coast Festival Broadcast (rebroadcast)

Wednesday, December 4

7:00 PM     Candles Burning Brightly

A one-hour celebration of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights with an exploration of Hanukkah foods and traditional activities … and plenty of music.

Saturday, December 21

8:00 PM     Winter Solstice Celebration

The Winter Solstice Celebration is a contemporary take on ancient solstice rituals, when people came together during the longest night of the year to celebrate the return of the sun, as the Earth begins its rotational cycle back towards summer. Now in its 33rd year, the performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the world’s largest cathedral, is New York’s favorite holiday alternative to The Nutcracker and Radio City Christmas.

Tuesday, December 24

10:00 AM     A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

A live stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King's College in Cambridge, England. The 30-voice King's College Choir performs the legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music.

Wednesday, December 25

9:00 AM     Welcome Christmas!

An hour of joyful holiday music featuring the Minneapolis-based chorus, VocalEssence.

10:00 AM     A Chanticleer Christmas

A celebration of the season as told through the glorious voices of Chanticleer, the 12-voice San Francisco-based men’s choir. The program spans the globe and the centuries – from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic and contemporary carols.    

11:00 AM     A Choral Christmas with Stile Antico

Stile Antico, the award-winning choir from London, pays a visit to St. Paul’s Church on Harvard Square for a concert of radiant sacred music for the Christmas season by the most acclaimed composers of the renaissance.

12:00 PM     Tinsel Tales: NPR Christmas Favorites

Stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas, featuring David Sedaris, Bailey White, and John Henry Faulk.

1:00 PM     Tinsel Tales 2

Another Tinsel Tales collection of the best and most requested holiday stories.

2:00 PM     Christmas with Morehouse and Spelman Glee Clubs

One of the great holiday traditions in America, the choirs of Morehouse and Spelman Colleges get together to present a spine-tingling concert program.

3:00 PM     Jazz Piano Christmas XXIX

NPR Music brings you another great concert from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Andy Bey, Stanley Cowell, Sullivan Fortner, and Michele Rosewoman perform their favorite holiday songs.

7:00PM     All Songs Considered for the Holidays

Host Bob Boilen and friends trade holiday cheer and snarky barbs while bringing you the best holiday songs from new and emerging breakout bands. Hear renditions of great holiday music you’ll never hear at the mall.

8:00 PM     A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (re-broadcast)

Tuesday, December 31

8:00 PM     Capitol Steps Politics Takes a Holiday

Help roast 2013 to a crisp with the Capitol Steps and their annual year-in-review awards ceremony.

9:00 PM-2:00 AM     Toast of the Nation

Jazz you can party to, all night from coast to coast, with countdowns to midnight in all four continental time zones.

Wednesday, January 1

11:00 AM     New Year’s Day from Vienna

The Vienna Philharmonic presents its annual salute to the waltz on New Year’s Day 2014!

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