255: Our Holiday Gift-Giving Guide
This American Life
12/14/25
•61m
About
Comments
Featured In
The vexing difficulty of finding the perfect gift.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass goes to a busy Target store one week before Christmas. Most shoppers he talks to don't think any of their gifts will be returned. (3 minutes)
- Act One: Ian Brown tries, after decades of failure, to give his mother the perfect Christmas gift. He and his brother attempt something they haven't done since they were kids: Rehearse and sing her a program of Christmas carols. (19 minutes)
- Act Two: We play a 1959 original recording of Truman Capote reading his holiday story A Christmas Memory. (18 minutes)
- Act Three: Caitlin Shetterly reports on a true-life holiday fable from rural Maine, complete with a misunderstood recluse with a heart of gold, a deserving family in need, and a very special Christmas tree farm with secrets of its own. (16 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Previous Episode
876: Bigger Than Me
December 7, 2025
•60m
When history comes knocking, you have to figure out what to do.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: Brittany’s job is to answer anonymous calls and texts from people in the military. This year, she’s gotten more than usual–most of them are wondering about what to do with orders they’ve been given. Or orders they’re afraid they’ll get someday in the future. (9 minutes)
- Act One: Jad Abumrad tells the story of the "ideological genealogy” of Fela Kuti’s anti-colonial politics–his mother. In late 1940s Nigeria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti found herself at the center of a big, historical moment: an uprising led by thousands of women selling goods in Nigeria’s markets. Jad goes searching for who she really was, and how she became the person who galvanized a movement when history demanded it of her. (45 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Next Episode
877: The Making Of
December 21, 2025
•60m
How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription — or to give one as a gift!
- Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes)
- Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes)
- Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted