What Christmas Means to You

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

News, News Commentary, New, Wnyc, Radio, Daily News, Bryan, Public, Politics, York, Lerer, Arts, Media, Nyc, Npr

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christians call in to share the religious meaning of the holiday for them and then listeners tell stories of moments that defined their common humanity with people from different backgrounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Brian Laira show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, and Merry Christmas Eve, right?
0:17.5	Today we have an all call-in show, no newsmakers, no elected officials, no experts,
0:22.6	just you and me on the phones and our text message feed. We do this kind of show from time to time
0:27.5	just for the fun of it and the human connection of it and also to give the shows producer team
0:32.4	a little break once in a while. And on this day before the official long weekend, several of our team members
0:38.8	are off, good place to burn a vacation day and have a really long weekend, right? So it's you and me
0:44.7	on the phones and on our text message feed. And I want to start by taking Christmas head on
0:51.4	and opening the phones for Christians on the question, what's the deepest
0:56.8	meaning of Christmas and of your Christianity to you? 212-433 WNYC. This is for any kinds of Christians,
1:07.3	Christians of any denomination. We are inviting you to call in and say a few words about what the
1:12.3	religious, spiritual, or cultural meaning of the holiday is to you. Also the political meaning of
1:18.6	Christmas of celebrating the birth of Jesus has any political significance for you. 212-433, W-N-Y-C.
1:33.5	Again, Christians of any denomination, we are inviting you to call in and answer in a few words, what is the religious, spiritual, cultural, or political meaning of Christmas,
1:39.2	and of your Christianity to you. Call or text, 212-433, WNYC, 433-9-6-9-2. And I say Christians of any
1:51.4	denomination, or I could say Christians of any stripe, because some of you may not even
1:55.3	identify with any official denomination, I realize I say Christians of any stripe, because
2:00.4	as with many religions, there's a lot of
2:03.3	diversity here. And I'm not Christian, full disclosure, I'm Jewish. So I'm just the host of the show here,
2:09.5	giving you an open mic. If you are a Christian on this Christmas Eve morning for you to tell
2:15.6	your story and answer that question for you.
2:18.6	If you're Catholic, do you feel like there's a particularly Catholic set of feelings or beliefs
2:24.1	that Jesus, that the birth of Jesus, that Christmas inspires as the deepest meaning for you?
	...

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