Holiday Programs 2025
Sunday, December 14th, 2025
Hanukkah Lights 2025: 3pm-4pm on Radio IQ
This NPR favorite returns with new stories plus gems from the archive. Hosted by Murray Horwitz with a special tribute to our beloved Susan Stamberg.
Monday Dec 22nd, 2025
Candles Burning Brightly: 2pm-3pm on WVTF Music
A delightful hour for everyone to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights! Lots of music from Jewish communities around the world, plus a hilarious lesson on how to prepare a classic Chanukah dish, and a timeless and touching holiday story that brings light into every home.
Chanukah Memories and Melodies: 3pm-4pm on WVTF Music
In this special from WQXR, six prominent artists share memories of Chanukah, and the music the holiday brings to mind. From soothing to surprising, from reverent to rowdy, their musical choices will inspire and delight you. With Broadway actress Tovah Feldshuh, social entrepreneur Aaron Dworkin, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Sephardic music virtuoso Daphna Mor, conductor Eric Jacobsen, and Yiddish music maven Henry Sapoznik. Hosted by WQXR's Elliott Forrest.
Winter Solstice- Sunday Dec 21st, 2025
Paul Winters’ Winter Solstice Concert: 3pm-4pm on WVTF Music
Celebrate the return of the sun with an encore performance recorded in the world’s largest Gothic cathedral. Musicians include Noel Paul Stookey, also known as Paul from the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. The Paul Winter Consort Winter Solstice Celebration (its official full title) also featured old friends like gospel singer Theresa Thomason and the Forces of Nature dance and drumming troupe from Harlem. WNYC's John Schaefer hosts.
Note: This is a repeat of the 2023 concert.
In Winter’s Glow: 4p – 5p on WVTF Music
A winter solstice program, with modern classical sounds for the longest night of the year, chosen especially to compliment the chilly, starry nights of the season.
https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2023/11/21/in-winters-glow-winter-solstice
Christmas Eve- Wednesday, December 24th 2025
Tinsel Tales 4: NPR Christmas Stories Told Through Song: 7pm-8pm on Radio IQ
NPR revisits interviews with musicians about their Christmas albums. Some, like Katie Melua and Sting, celebrate tradition and winter mystery in their Christmas songs. Others, like Kenny Rogers and Amy Grant, find spirituality and stability in holiday music. Jon Batiste and Anthony Hamilton bring new energy to old favorites on their Christmas albums. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
Tinsel Tales 3: Even More NPR Christmas Favorites- 8pm-9pm on Radio IQ
In keeping with a well-loved NPR holiday tradition, hear the third collection of extraordinary Christmas stories that will transport you to unexpected places. Audie Cornish, Ken Harbaugh, Nina Totenberg and other voices from NPR's past and present tell stories of the season in this hour-long special. Some tales are funny; some are touching; some are insightful or irreverent or nostalgic or surprising. You might recognize them from our broadcast archives — or you might fall in love with them for the first time. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
Tinsel Tales 2: More NPR Christmas Favorites- 9pm-10pm on Radio IQ
NPR fills millions of homes each holiday with humor, warmth, and a host of festive voices. Continuing with the tradition of the first Tinsel Tales program, this is another collection of the best and most requested holiday stories. Joy, hope, and childhood memories overflow as NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
Tinsel Tales: NPR Christmas Favorites- 10pm-11pm on Radio IQ
This program features stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris, Bailey White, John Henry Faulk -- these and other NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: 10am-noon (LIVE) on WVTF Music
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was introduced by Eric Milner-White in 1918 to bring a more imaginative approach to worship. The service includes readings from the Bible. The opening carol is always 'Once in Royal David's City', and there is always a new, specially commissioned carol. This special will be presented by one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue, the 500-year-old Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England.https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/a-festival-of-nine-lessons-and-carols
The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice-Noon-2pm on WVTF Music
CHRISTMAS REVELS performances have been described as entertaining collections of country, ritual and courtly dances, wassails, carols, songs and ballads, spirituals, hymns and anthems, story-telling, poetry and drama. They are made up of sacred and secular folk materials, plus some composed popular and "art" music, from traditional European, Middle Eastern, Asian and American celebrations of Advent, Chanukah, Las Posadas, Christmas, the Feast of Fools, New Year's, Twelfth Night, Epiphany/Old Christmas, and other end-of-the-year festivals, along with various cultures' hereditary observances of the Winter Solstice, some elements of which date back to pre-Christian times.
The music in this year's CHRISTMAS REVELS radio broadcast is mostly traditional, comes from several different cultures and eras, and encompasses the widest variety of music included in any holiday special available from any source. Listeners travel backwards in time a couple of hundred years to England's West Country, where the villagers welcome in the Winter Holidays with jolly wassails, Medieval, Renaissance and Victorian-era Christmas carols and hymns, and a rousing pub song or two. Another segment of the program takes us to the site of a unique experiment in urban living: Seneca Village, a settlement organized, owned and populated by free Blacks and former African American slaves, which flourished during the middle third of the Nineteenth Century in an area of Manhattan Island which is now a part of New York City's Central Park. The residents of Seneca Village share with us some of the spirituals, gospel songs and fiddle tunes with which they celebrate the Yuletide. In Sweden, the children remind us in song that, on the occasion of the Winter Solstice, it is customary to set out a bowl of porridge for the gnome who secretly lives in the barn, thanking him for taking care of various chores around the house and stable throughout the year, and for protecting the farm against the mischief of evil spirits. When a women from Cabo Verde, the island nation off the coast of west Africa, arrives to take a new job in a small town in modern-day Ireland, there is a bit of cultural awkwardness at first, but soon the townsfolk are sharing with the newcomer traditional and contemporary Irish Christmas carols and dance tunes, and she, in turn, teaches them a popular Cabo Verdean folk song of celebration. https://revels.org/
Christmas Day- Thursday, December 25th
A Christmas Carol w/ Jonathan Winters: 9am-10am on Radio IQ
A public radio tradition hosted by NPR's Susan Stamberg. Master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of Dickens' holiday classic, with a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. Also featuring Mimi Kennedy. From NPR and KCRW.
https://www.npr.org/2004/12/13/4225458/jonathan-winters-a-christmas-carol
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: 10am-Noon (Encore) on Radio IQ
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols presents your audience with an opportunity to share in a live, world-wide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of Biblical readings, carols, and related seasonal Classical music. This special will be presented by one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue, the 500-year-old Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England.
https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/a-festival-of-nine-lessons-and-carols
St Olaf Christmas Festival: Noon-2pm on WVTF Music
A service in song and word that has become one of the nation’s most cherished holiday celebrations. Tickets to the event - which takes place at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN - are always gone months in advance. The festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, as well as orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians in five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra. https://christmas.stolaf.edu/
Welcome Christmas-: 2pm-3pm on WVTF Music
The perennial Christmas favorite from VocalEssence, one of the world’s premiere choral groups. An hour of traditional carols and new discoveries.
All is Bright: 3pm-4pm on WVTF Music
One hour of gorgeous, contemplative music related to the Christmas season and its symbolism. Hosted by Lynne Warfel (Encore from 2023)
A Chanticleer Christmas: 4pm-5pm on WVTF Music
This unique, one-hour program of holiday music is presented live in concert by Chanticleer. Hear why this superb 12-man ensemble is known as "an orchestra of voices," as they perform holiday classics and new favorites, with choral commentary by host Steve Staruch.
Christmas with Madrigalia 2025: 6pm-7pm on WVTF Music
This holiday season, the Rochester, NY chamber choir Madrigalia and their Artistic Director Cary Ratcliff return to public radio for Christmas with Madrigalia. The program celebrates the excitement and joy of the holiday season with traditional carols and anthems from the around the world celebrating the Winter Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas, and the New Year.
https://www.madrigalia.org/50th-anniversary-season
The Sound of Cinnamon: 7-8pm on WVTF Music
What does hygge mean to you? Maybe it means friendship, laughter, or more concrete things like warmth, light, seasonal food and drink. It might make you think of sitting by the fire on a cold winter night, wearing your favorite oversized sweater, reading a book, and sipping cinnamon tea. In the special, "The Sound of Cinnamon," Jake Armerding invites you to experience coziness and contentment with a hygge soundtrack perfect for finding your favorite pair of slippers and putting your feet up.
New Years Eve- Wednesday, December 31st, 2025
2025 Remembered from the Current: 6pm-8pm on Radio IQ
Join The Current in honoring the life, music, and legacy of artists we lost this year with 2025 Remembered from The Current. This two-hour musical tribute is a celebration of all sounds - from indie to influential - and the perfect way for music lovers to unite in paying homage to the artists who have shaped music history.
Toast of the Nation: 8pm-12am on Radio IQ
An NPR tradition every New Year's Eve since the 1970s, Toast of the Nation is the perfect audio complement for the occasion. It's festive jazz you can party to, all night long.
New Years Day- Thursday, January 1st, 2026
New Years Day From Vienna: 11am-1pm on WVTF Music
The Vienna Philharmonic will perform their famous New Year's Day concert from the renowned Musikverein in Vienna on January 1, 2025. The concert will be conducted by Riccardo Muti, Music Director Emeritus of the Chicago Symphony, who has directed the Vienna Philharmonic more than 500 times since his debut in 1971. This will be his seventh New Year’s Day appearance, his first was in 1993.
The 2025 New Year's Day program includes many favorites by Johann Strauss Junior, since 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, as well as two items appearing on the New Year's Day concert for the first time, including the Ferdinandus Waltz by Johann Strauss’ contemporary Constanze Geiger. As it has for decades now, the encores feature the most famous waltz ever, From the Blue Danube, as well as the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss Senior. Hosted by WBUR's Lisa Mullins.
https://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/en/