If the drop in temperature has you in the holiday spirit, we have good news for you. This week, we’ve got seasonal treats, including a program of carols, a little holiday horror, and two different takes on classic Christmas movies. Keep reading for these and more below.
Though Philip Van Doren Stern’s novella The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale didn’t garner the attention of any publishers, his 1943 decision to print copies to send out as Christmas cards resulted in his Hollywood agent asking if she could “offer the story to the movies.” Stern agreed, and within two years, the film rights made it to Frank Capra, who turned it into a holiday classic starring Jimmy Stewart. On Thursday, December 4, at 7 p.m., Stages will officially open It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, a reimagination of the 1946 film as a 1940s radio broadcast, with six actors performing all the roles while creating the sound effects in real time. Performances will continue 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 1 and 7 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 p.m. Sundays through December 28. Tickets are available here for $25 to $109.
Despite it being regular seasonal programming this time of year, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah was first performed during Lent in Dublin in 1742. Still, the epic work, with 53 songs grouped into three sections, has proved to be a different holiday’s tradition since, with the “Hallelujah” chorus in particular popping up across history and pop culture, from a concert celebrating Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to the 1994 film Dumb & Dumber. And on Friday, December 5, at 7:30 p.m., the Houston Symphony will once again bring the work to Jones Hall during Handel’s Messiah. The concert will be performed again in-hall at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 6, and 2 p.m. Sunday, December 7. Tickets are available here for $68 to $174. Saturday night’s performance will also be livestreamed, and access can be purchased here for $20.
If you like your holiday fare to have a dark twist to it, you’re not alone. Discussing the appeal of Christmas horror, The Hollywood Reporter noted that “there’s just something appealing about the taboo nature of blending unsavory elements with what is, for many, the second best holiday after Halloween.” If you agree, visit Studio 233 at Spring Street Studios on Friday, December 5, at 8 p.m., when Cone Man Running Productions opens the world premiere of Matt Elliott and Debra Schultz’s A Long Night. In the Christmas Eve-set play, the horror is psychological, as the arrival of unexpected visitors puts pressure on a family with hidden secrets and buried truths. Performances continue at 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, and December 15 and 18, and 7 p.m. Sundays through December 20. Tickets can be purchased here for $12 to $20.
Villa de Matel, the Mother House of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, welcomed its first residents in early 1926, and the Sisters of Charity remain there to this day. On Saturday, December 6, at 2:30 p.m., Houston Chamber Choir will return to the Chapel of Villa de Matel for its annual holiday concert, Tapestry: Christmas at the Villa, along with Treble Choir of Houston and Houston Bronze Ensemble. Themes of peace and goodwill will be woven through the program, which will feature carols that represent the Sisters’ countries of origin. The concert will be performed again at 5 p.m. Saturday, December 6, and 2:30 and 5 p.m. Sunday, December 7. Tickets to any of the performances are available here for $10 to $50.
An episode of Looney Tunes—specifically, one in which the one-time mad scientist’s henchman Gossamer breaks into a rendition of jazz standard “September in the Rain” during a talent show—first sparked Cameroonian-American jazz vocalist Ekep Nkwelle’s interest in music. That introduction began a journey that’s taken Nkwelle from her hometown of Washington D.C. to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Howard University, and The Juilliard School. On Saturday, December 6, at 8 p.m., DACAMERA will present Nkwelle, a fast-rising name in jazz, in concert at the Wortham Theater Center. She will be joined by pianist Julius Rodriguez, bassist Russell Hall, and drummer Brian Richburg, Jr., for a showcase of classic jazz sensibility mixed with modern vocal nuance. Tickets can be purchased here for $53.50 to $91.00.
Music from an old German folk song, combined with lyrics written by a schoolmaster in Leipzig in 1824, became the familiar holiday tune “O Tannenbaum.” It is but one seasonal, tree-centric song, as it turns out “the symbol of the evergreen tree was too strongly rooted in the old European religions to be entirely eradicated with the coming of Christianity.” You can enjoy collection of traditional pieces of music that focus on the natural world when Paul Hope Cabarets presents Christmas Flora and Fauna at 7:30 p.m. Monday, December 8, at Ovations Night Club. The festive program, which will include other songs like the English folk song “The Holly and the Ivy” and “Carol of the Birds,” will be performed again at 7:30 p.m. December 15 and 22. Single tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $40.
Two World War II buddies attempt to save a failing inn in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, a musical based on the 1954 Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye film of the same name, will return to Theatre Under the Stars at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, December 9, at 7:30 p.m. Kevin Cooney, who for the third time will play General Waverly in the production, recently told the Houston Press the musical “calls back those feelings that the country had when we were maybe a little more united in our political thoughts with regard to the war.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through December 24. Tickets can be purchased here for $52 to $173.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.