The holiday season is in full swing, and it’s certainly reflected in our best bets. We’ve got carols galore, but also classic anime films, three Broadway legends, and a sneak peek at an upcoming Lloyd Suh play. Keep reading for these and more.
Houston Symphony’s Very Merry Pops returns to Jones Hall on Thursday, December 11, at 7:30 p.m. with a program of traditional carols; a 35th anniversary celebration of Home Alone, featuring music featured in the film, including John Williams’ “Somewhere in My Memory” from Home Alone; and a tribute to Christmas tunes from the 1960s. Vocalist Ali Stroker will join the Houston Symphony Chorus and the orchestra, led by Conductor Brett Mitchell, with the big man himself, Santa Claus, also scheduled to make an appearance. The concert will be performed again at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 13, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 14, with Saturday night’s performance also livestreamed. In-hall tickets can be purchased here for $75 to $211, and access to the livestream is available here for $20.
In 1834, 14-year-old Afong Moy was recorded as the first Chinese woman to enter the United States, brought by merchants to help market their Chinese goods. For almost two decades, Moy traveled the U.S., audiences paying to see her use chopsticks and get a look at her bound feet. In 2018, playwright Lloyd Suh premiered The Chinese Lady, “a moving and often sharply funny riff” on Moy’s story, “traversing 188 years of American ugliness and exoticization in 90 swift, heightened minutes.” Stages will bring the play to Houston in February, but on Thursday, December 11, at 7:30 p.m., you can get a sneak preview of the show with a reading, followed by a conversation about Moy, at Asia Society Texas. The event is free, but please register here.
Three Broadway stars, two Tony nominees and one winner, and all veterans of the musical Hairspray, are coming to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, December 13 at 2 p.m. for Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now. Laura Bell Bundy, who wrote, directed, and co-produced the show with Kerry Butler and Marissa Jaret Winokur, recently told the Houston Press, “The show sort of charts our origin stories from getting into the business, to Hairspray, the things about Hairspray you might be surprised to find out. And then the rest of our careers, our lives, finding loves, becoming mamas ourselves.” The show will be performed a second time at 7 p.m. on Saturday, December 13. Tickets to either performance can be purchased here for $40 to $85.
On Saturday, December 13 at 3 p.m., Bach Society Houston will join the holiday festivities with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio & the Magnificat at the Shepherd School of Music’s Brockman Hall for Opera at Rice University. The program includes two of the six parts of Johann Sebastian Bach Christmas Oratorio, written for Christmas 1734. The first and fifth cantatas will be performed; the first, featuring nine movements about the birth of Christ and the fifth, describing the arrival of the Three Wise Men in 11 movements. The choir and orchestra, joined by featured vocalists including tenor Kyle Stegall, will also perform Bach’s Mary-centric Magnificat, which takes its text from the Gospel of Luke. Tickets can be purchased here for $35 to $50, with student tickets also available for $10.
If you can’t get enough holiday music, you will want to make it over to Discovery Green on Saturday, December 13, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., for the ultimate singalong during their annual Carols on the Green. Artists from Houston Grand Opera will be present for the program, which this year will celebrate Latin American culture with traditional Spanish songs, carols, mariachi, and more. Jorge Parodi, the music director of the UH Moores Opera Center and general and artistic director of Opera Hispánica, will conduct and emcee the curated program, which will feature performances from Los Pumas Mariachi Band, the Segundo Barrio Children’s Chorus, and members of HGO’s Butler Studio program, Bauer Family High School Voice Studio, and the HGO Chorus. The event is free to attend.
Spirited Away, “one of the finest of all animated films” and the winner of the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Feature, will be screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Sunday, December 14, at 2 p.m. The film, about a little girl who finds herself in a world of spirits and demons, is one of two films by Hayao Miyazaki being screened as part of Studio Ghibli Anime Favorites, which includes an additional screening of Spirited Away at 6 p.m. on Saturday, December 13, and two screenings of Kiki’s Delivery Service, Miyazaki’s 1989 coming-of-age story about a young witch who decides to use her broom to start a delivery service, at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 13, and 6 p.m. Sunday, December 14. Tickets to any of the screenings are available for $7 to $9.
Imagine a breakup right before the holidays – specifically, imagine seeing your fiancé kissing another woman on live television during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That’s exactly what happens to Mary, the protagonist of Ginna Hoben’s one-woman holiday comedy The Twelve Dates of Christmas, which opens at Stages on Sunday, December 14, at 3 p.m. The 90-minute one-act play, which world premiered at the American Shakespeare Center of Staunton, Virginia, in 2010, follows Mary (played by Houston-based actor Jamie Rezanour) as she re-enters the dating world with a goal: One date every month for the next year. Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays through December 28 at The Gordy. Tickets are available here for $25 to $104.
In 1989, the Griswold family, veterans of two National Lampoon’s Vacation films (originally based on a John Hughes’ short story), stayed home for the third, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, “a glowingly goofy homage to family holidays.” But that didn’t stop the misadventures from befalling the family and its patriarch Clark, played by Chevy Chase. On Monday, December 15, at 7:30 p.m., Chase will visit the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land for a screening of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and a live conversation. Chase, with his wife, Jayni, are currently touring the country celebrating the 35th anniversary of the film, sharing anecdotes and answering fan questions about the film and his career, which includes time on Saturday Night Live and movies like Caddyshack. Tickets can be purchased here for $44 to $212.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.