Christmas is one week away. And how am I celebrating? With restraint and circumspection. In the

Gladwell family, we do a mid-century modern Christmas, spare, elegant, minimalist. Lots of the baby Jesus

in a tasteful Scandinavian leather and rosewood manger. No Santa, no reindeer, no elves.

Not so for my colleague, Ben Nadav Haffrey. The glabbles impose a dollar limit on gifts,

like price controls in some socialist state. The Nadav Haferys spend months thinking of what to get

one another. The glabbles buy a tree at the last moment and would be happier if we could just move the whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine in the backyard.

Ben's family has a tree, a little model village covered in snow, and his father's vintage electric train set, plus a little metal tree with ornaments that's up year-round.

So when I told Ben that I had never watched, It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned.

Then he reached out to me, as the Good Samaritan did to the traveler lying bereft by the side of the road.

How could this be? He asked me gently.

Because, as you can imagine,

for the Nadav Hafrey's,

It's a Wonderful Life is a Sacred Text.

Then Ben told me another story

about what in his mind

is an even more important Christmas tale.

A story that he regards

as the apotheosis of all Christmas movies.

A story not in a film, but of the making of a film.

Welcome to Revisionist History. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show, Ben the Nafafaf

Raffrey relays for the very first time in history. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show, Ben the Nathafaf

Raffrey relays for the very first time in history, the truly screwy story of the making

...