Spirit of the Season: Christmas Music and Traditions in America

People have been buying gifts to give to family members and friends.  They have been filling homes and stores with evergreen trees and bright, colored lights.  They have been going to parties and preparing special Christmas foods.  Many people think Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Johnny Mathis thinks so, too.

Young children believe that Santa Claus is a fat, kind, old man in a red suit with white fur.  They believe that -- on the night before Christmas -- he travels through the air in a sleigh pulled by reindeer.  He enters each house from the top by sliding down the hole in the fireplace.  He leaves gifts for the children under the Christmas tree.

Americans spend a lot of time and money buying Christmas presents.  The average American family spends about eight-hundred dollars.  Stores and shopping centers are crowded at this time of year.  More than twenty percent of all goods sold during the year are sold during the weeks before Christmas.  This is good for stores and for the American economy.

The ballet is about a young girl named Clara.  Clara is celebrating Christmas with her family and friends.  One of her Christmas presents is a little device to open nuts -- a nutcracker.  It is shaped like a toy soldier.  She dreams that the nutcracker comes to life as a good-looking prince.