Christmas

Gary Neal Johnson is retiring from his nearly 25-year run as Ebenezer Scrooge in the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” He Joined KCUR’s Up To Date for an installment of our series “5 Questions,” and to discuss hanging up his hat after acting in the play for 40 years.

A Kansas City cookbook author gives us a glimpse of her warm kitchen this winter season. Plus, while many people go online or to the mall to shop for presents, some rural towns go all out to try and attract holiday shoppers.

Winter holiday festivals have become a regular way to grow revenue for America’s smallest towns. And with more people shopping online, those events are key to pulling people away from their screens and into stores.

Lawrence violist Mary Tuven and composer and bassist Charles Kelso Hoag often brought their daughter, Andrea Hoag, to their wintertime performances when she was just a small child. Now all grown up, Hoag brings those decades-old memories to life in her short story “The Christmas Musicians.”

Kansas City jazz pianist Tim Whitmer is out with a new record for the second year in a row — and this time, he is hoping his music spreads holiday cheer. The album "Happy Holidays" features Whitmer's takes on timeless classics like "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

Some tree farms in the central U.S. are selling more potted Christmas trees as people seek out an eco-friendly option or look to get more than one use out of their evergreens.

Toys for Tots, the 80-year-old program run by the U.S. Marines, is seeing toy donations down by almost 20% this year. Staff Sgt. Christian Martinez was once the recipient of one of those toys. Now, as coordinator of the Kansas City chapter of Toys for Tots, he's worried that other little boys won't get the same joy he did.

The Country Club Plaza holiday lighting ceremony is a beloved Thanksgiving tradition in Kansas City. But even many lifelong residents don’t know that the lights actually turn on a day earlier, in a 2 a.m. test run that draws its own small crowd of onlookers.

Gwen Ottenberg, owner of Imagine That Toys in Wichita, has been selling games for more than 25 years and playing them even longer.

The Crown Center Ice Terrace was recently named one of the top ice skating locations in the country. For 52 years, families, friends and the newly-in-love have taken to the ice at Kansas City’s only public outdoor ice skating rink, which runs all the way into March.

Why throw your Christmas tree in the dump when you can “treecycle” it? Here’s how and where you can make the most of your unwanted trees after the holidays.

Tenant union members at an Independence apartment building are in their third month of a rent strike. Has it been worth the risk? Plus: A Kansas native explains how Truman Capote and Harper Lee ended up joining her family for Christmas dinner.