Lights, Camera, Christmas! (2012)

This holiday season, we bring you a show filled with stories of people going to great lengths to throw a special Christmas for their families, including: tales of Luna the guinea pig, Bambi the reindeer, and Jeko the super-powerful (and somewhat-scary) Christmas elf. Prologue: Linda Lutton and her eleven year old daughter Pirecua explain what happened the year Pirecua begged for a gift that she turned out to be allergic to. Linda is a reporter at our home station, WBEZ Chicago. (6 minutes) Christmas in 3-D: Maya Gurantz tells the story of Glenn and Laurie Mutchler, who go further than most parents to create a magical Christmas for their kids, Colin, Erica and Adam. Theirs included a family mythology of Santas that had its own logic, with many Santas and a family elf named Jeko, who were never jolly and often thrillingly scary. (20 minutes) Deer in the Footlights: Ira talks with Connie Rex about the deer she and her sisters kidnapped and ended up putting into their school’s Christmas pageant in Woodruff, Utah, in a starring role. (11 minutes) Piddler On the Roof: Ron Carlson reads from a short story — it’s fiction — about a man, his wife Drew, his daughter Elise, a Christmas sledding record, a tree, and horse manure. "The H Street Sledding Record" by Ron Carlson. Copyright © 1984 by Ron Carlson. From his story collection A KIND OF FLYING: Selected Stories by Ron Carlson, published by W. W. Norton & Co. Originally published in McCall's. (20 minutes)